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FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

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THE DESPATCH.

FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN
YEARS

JOURNALISTIC, POLITICAL, SOCIAL,
THEATRICAL and PIONEERING

By BARRY RONAN

WITH A FOREWORD BY

The Hon. Sir E. H. Walton, K.C.M.G.,

High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa

HEATH CRANTON LIMITED
6 FLEET LANE LONDON E.C4

The Author desires to thank the Proprietors
of South Africa for their kindness in supplying
the blocks'used to illustrate this book.

Printed in Ghreat Britain for Heath Cranton Limited by Hate <t Sons (1919) Ltd.,
Bournemouth.

MY WIFE

CONTENTS

Chap.

Page

Foreword ...

In the Beginning . .

Old Dublin Days . .

III

Homeland Adventures

As a Gunner

Recollections of the “ Seventies ”

The Gateway of Africa . .

VII

Reporting Recollections . .

VIII

Gentlemen Adventurers . .

Seeing the Country

Durban and Delagoa

Delagoa Doings

107

XII

Capturing a Gunboat

115

XIII

The Burying of Barker . .

124

XIV

In Swaziland

133

In Swaziland (continued)

143

XVI

When the Rand Was Young

151

XVII

The Starting of Golden City

161

XVIII

When Kruger Ruled

169

XIX

Putting the Paper to Bed

177

The Jameson Raid

182

XXI

The Great Explosion

193

XXII

Rhodesia’s Youth

202

XXIII

A Mission to Lobengula . .

211

XXIV

Ghosts of the Past

219

Index

233

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Jameson Raid. The

Despatch

Frontispiece

The First Hotel. ...

To face p.

The First Rand Club

First Standard Bank

First Output of Gold

Durban, long ago ...

Siege of Durban, 1842

West Street, Durban, in the
Seventies

101

First Engine in South Africa

101

Durban Town Hall

103

Harvey Greenacres

109

First Two-Storey House in
Durban ...

109

Open Working at the Rand

152

The First House

152

Johannesburg To-day

155

The Despatch

188

South African Parliamentary
Inquiry ...

191

Ditto

191

The Johannesburg Explosion

195

FOREWORD

I was engaged in a stiff election fight in the
Nineties when I first met Mr. Barry Ronan and
he was good enough to join my Committee. We
won handsomely and Mr. Barry Ronan left the
Eastern Province of South Africa to take up
journalistic work in the North. He is the happy
possessor of a fund of humour, ever kindly ajid
gentle, a great gift which endears him to very
many in South Africa, and the reader of this
book will find much to amuse but “ nought set
down in malice.” South Africa has grown
enormously since those early days of wliich Mr.
Barry Ronan writes in the opening chapters of
his book, and it is growing yearly. To many of
the South Africans of today the people of whom
Mr. Barry Ronan writes are unknown, or are
only known by name, and it is well for the youth
of the country to be brought thus intimately
into touch with the men who have made South
African history during these last forty years. It
is too soon even yet to write with entire freedom
of all that time. South Africa has passed
through anxious times, bloody times, and has for
ever, we hope, turned her back upon the tragedies
and troubles of the past. There are scars yet
unhealed, scars which sympathy and good feel-
ing will cause to disappear, scars which rude
hands might yet make wounds of. Mr. Barry
Ronan, however, has a delicate touch and his
pen will cause no offence. The younger genera-
tion of South Africans will find in his pages

many interesting stories, new to them, of men
whose names have long been familiar, and the
older generation will find many memories
awakened. This book is not a history but just a
chatty gossip about old times, such as most men
love.

E. H. WALTON.

1923.

CHAPTER I

In The Beginning

I WAS born in Bohemia. Dear, dirty Dublin
in the early sixties was a nearer approach to the
City of Prague than even London. At that
period Dublin literally swarmed with men of
talent devoted to the Arts, Science, and Law,
who had made successes or failures of their careers,
or who were only just beginning them. They
were all united by one fraternal bond — that of an
unfailing good-nature. They were members of a
brotherhood whose vows were unwritten yet
fully recognised. Equality was the keynote and
the unsuccessful writer, the briefless barrister and
the actor “ out of a shop,” were received with
unfeigned camaraderie by their more prosperous
associates. Wit was more prevalent in those
days than in these of the vulgarity of the revue,
and drinking also was more freely indulged in
than to-day. The mad exuberance of such gather-
ings as that of the Monks of the Screw, so ably
described by Lever, was a reality of the period.
In the ensuing two decades Bohemia crumbled
to ruin — in Dublin through the upsetting of

14 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

society by the machinations of Fenianism, and
the long years of political turmoil which followed
in its wake ; in London through the inanities,
and consequent satirical onslaughts on it, of the
aesthetic craze, and by the general adoption of
the dress suit for evening functions, an innovation
to the artistic world which marked the closing
portion of the Victorian era.

My father was an artist, and being his constant
companion when a boy, I was privileged to meet
a host of men and women whose names were then
famous, and many whose fame still survives. My
recollections, however, are only boyish ones.
Nevertheless some personalities stand out to-day
with remarkable vividness. The kaliedoscope
furnished by the memories of one’s tender years
is one of the most wonderful functions of the
human brain, and points the moral of being
careful in what we say and do before children.
As I have said, some memories are clothed in the
bright colours of reality, while others are but
members of the shadow world, now indistinct,
now almost palpable.

I can close my eyes and after all these years
a crowd of figures, long since dust, assemble before
my retina. J. L. (“ Johnnie ”) Toole, the come-
dian, then causing a furore as the Artful Dodger
in the dramatised version of Oliver Twist, and in
a play especially his own, Uncle Dick's Darling.

IN THE BEGINNING

He was always shabbily dressed, but wore his
clothing with a dashing air of nonchalance, and
was ever cheery and scattering jokes. Madame
Celeste, a buxom Frenchwoman, who always
commanded full houses with such plays as The
Green Bushes, and Charles Fechter, the ideal
Hamlet, with a host of theatrical stars to whom
I shall have occasion to refer later in these papers.

Standing out boldest of all in my memory is
the figure of a distinguished Irish author, J.
Sheridan Le Fanu, at whose house in Merrion
Square, I was a frequent visitor. I never ceased
to be impressed by his distinguished appearance,
clad though he usually was in an old brown velvet
working jacket, and by the refinement of his
manners. He was a grand nephew of Richard
Brinsley Sheridan, the author of over a dozen
novels, one at least of which. Uncle Silas has
been several times reprinted, and who wrote a
recitation which is famous all the world over,
Shamus O^Brien. He was proprietor of The
Dublin University Magazine, of which Charles
Lever was for some time editor, and his house
was a meeting place for many notable people.
I remember with what awe I gazed upon Le Fanu,
Lever and Dickens at dinner at the former’s
table — they were veritable Olympians to my
adoring regard. Two of Le Fanu’s sons were
launched on the journalistic ocean of London

16 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

in after years. Mark Lemon, the jovial editor
of Punch, I also saw in Dublin, but whether in
Merrion Square or elsewhere I am not certain. I
know he crossed the Channel to play Falstaff in
some amateur production, a part which he fre-
quently played, and played well. Nature al-
lowed him to dispense with the bulky padding
which most actors have to affect for the jovial
knight.

In connection with private theatricals I saw
my first stage performance, and encountered my
first deep emotion, at the house of Mr. Justice
Lawson, in Fitzwilliam Square, a kindly gentle-
man in home life, whatever he may have been on
the bench, who met an untimely death in after
years. The play was the Midsummer Night's
Dream, and when Bottom removed his asinine
head, the unnaturalness of the whole proceedings
so appalled me that I had to be carried in dis-
grace, loudly screaming, from the improvised
theatre.

I have another notable figure in my mind’s eye.
It is that of Mr. Isaac Butt, K.C., who was not
so actively engaged at the Four Courts (Dublin’s
group of Law Courts on the Liffey) as wholly to
shun the amenities of society. He was the found-
er and first leader of the Home Rule Party. That
movement has loomed largely in the eye of the
British newspaper reader in many succeeding

IN THE BEGINNING

years, but I venture to think that the number
to-day who know how the movement commenced
is very small indeed.

Home Rule as a party cry was initiated in
1873 by Archbishop McHale, and the new idea
was strongly supported by the Roman Catholic
Clergy throughout Ireland. The result was a
conference of leading lights, held in the Rotunda,
Dublin, from the 18th to 21st November, 1873.
Isaac Butt (then M.P. for Limerick) was chosen
as the Parliamentary mouthpiece of the party.
In March, 1874, he moved in the House of Com-
mons for the appointment of a Select Committee
to report on the autonomous governance of
Ireland, but his motion was negatived. This
check, however, only added fresh fuel to the
agitation. Butt died in 1878 and was succeeded
by Mr. W. Shaw as leader of the party. At a
party conference held in May, 1880, Charles
Stuart Parnell was selected as leader. His in-
domitable fighting career and tragic end, as well
as the varying fortunes of the Home Rule party,
are too much matters of history to need reference
in these pages.

During the ten years prior to this great political
propaganda Ireland was torn to its very centre
by the sensations afforded by the Fenian Brother-
hood. Fenianism had undoubtedly its birth-
place in the United States, and was the offspring

18 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

of the unwise administration, which had driven
a steady annual stream of emigrants from Ireland
to America for fully thirty years previously.
These people hated leaving their beloved homes
and no matter how comfortably they settled
down in the land of their adoption their thoughts
were always with the “ Ould Counthry.” Mem-
ories of famine and unjust land laws constantly
rankled, and in their hearts a bitter hatred of
England and all things English grew and throve
with what it fed on. Among the extreme spirits
brooding developed into inimical activity, and
from America money, arms and incendiary litera-
ture soon fanned into a flame the smouldering
sparks of discontent in Ireland.

I was too young at the time fully to under-
stand what was happening in Dublin and other
parts of Ireland, but I have veiy clear recol-
lections of some of the sensations of the period,
which, small boy as I was, deeply impressed me.

I clearly recollect the impression caused in
Dublin by the escape from Kilmainham gaol of
the Fenian Head Centre, James Stephens. This
occurred in 1865. He, and a few fellow-prisoners,
scaled an apparently insurmountable wall, after
breaking out of their cells, and got clean away.
The general impression was that some of the
turnkeys had been heavily bribed, and anyone
who knew the Bastille-like security of that sombre

IN THE BEGINNING

building was confirmed in this belief. Stephens
made his way to America, and many years after-
wards died in Paris. O’Donovan Rossa, was
another Fenian leader who was an idol to the
lower classes, and there were many more who
undoubtedly commanded the sympathies of the
proletariat.

I remember one evening being attracted by a
dense erowd in Middle Abbey Street. It ap-
peared that an affray had just occurred between a
party of Fenians and a posse of shadowing de-
tectives, the combatants firing their revolvers
at each other across the street. There were
fatalities, but I do not recollect the number.

Never shall I forget the fright which oppressed
me when I found myself, a lad of nine or so, in
the midst of a notorious riot in the Phoenix Park
in 1871. It is said that all Irishmen dearly love
a row — perhaps I was not suffieiently manlike
at the time. The Prince of Wales (afterwards
King Edward VII.) was then paying a visit to
Dublin, and was staying at the Vice-regal Lodge,
in the Park, and the scene of the disturbance
could be commanded, to some extent, from its
windows. A politieal meeting was being held in
defiance of the prohibitory proclamation, the
orators speaking from the topmost step of the
large obelisk commemorative of the Duke of
Wellington. The obelisk is situated on a grassy

20 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

plateau, surrounded by a deep dell. In this dell
large bodies of police were hidden. At a signal
they advanced baton in hand, and charged the
massed crowd. They struck right and left in-
discriminately, women as well as men going
down before their blows. It was an exhibition
of sheer savagery. The helpless, crowded people
retreated pell-mell until they arrived close to the
park gates, where a number of mounds of road-
metal were found. These provided ammunition
for the mob, now maddened beyond all control,
and the onward rush of the police was first
checked, then broken, with many casualties in
their ranks. The great crowd surged along the
quays, public-houses were broken into, their
shutters flung into the river, and alcohol added
fuel to the wrath of the multitude. The troops
by this time had been called out, and, as Dublin
was an immense garrison in those days, the
streets were quickly cleared. The hospitals of
the city were filled and there were many deaths.

A somewhat similar riot haunts my memory.
I think it happened in the same year. A large
timber yard in Thomas Street, not far from St.
Patrick’s Cathedral (sacred to memories of Dean
Swift) caught fire. There was a mighty blaze
which communicated itself to three other timber
yards, and the result was an enormous conflagra-
tion. I happened along, and was lost in wonder

IN THE BEGINNING

at the magnitude of the holocaust — the whole
world seemed on fire. The sight attracted all
the hooligans of Dublin ; every adjacent slum
spewed forth its teeming population. I soon
found myself squeezed flat against the shutters
of a shop-front, and in the ensuing disorders I
could not have moved a foot if my life depended
on it. The rowdy element soon got out of hand.
The hose of the fire brigade was cut in the sur-
rounding streets and several public-houses
wrecked. The police were powerless against
the frantic rush, and the scene of the street-
fighting, illuminated by the blazing stacks of
timber and burning alcohol running down the
street gutters, presented a terrifying spectacle.
Presently I saw, from my compulsory vantage
point, the cavalry charge down the main thor-
oughfare. They were the Scots Greys, and I
thought how beautiful their swords looked as
they reflected the brilliant light flashing right
and left, as the troop cut the “ pursuing prac-
tice,” using the flat of the weapon on the crowd.
A brickbat struck the shutter beside my ear
and burst like a shell. That convinced me that
there was no place like home, but I could not
get out of the jamb. Eventually the Horse
Artillery tore up at a gallop, and when they
unlimbered their guns at the top of the street
the crowds consented to disperse, moving slowly

22 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

and sullenly homewards. I made for my home
at top speed.

CHAPTER II

Old Dublin Days

The Prince and Princess of Wales paid a pre-
vious visit to Dublin, in 1868, and I have never
heard anything but expressions of warm affection,
from all classes, high and low, for the Royal
visitors. Alexandra captured the Irish hearts as
easily as she did those in England. The Lord-
Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, was known as the
“ Red Earl,” from his flovdng beard, and he was
a familiar and popular figure, as he almost daily
rode down Dame Street from Dublin Castle,
unattended by any escort. He rode stately and
dignified, a glittering decoration of some order
on the breast of his coat, as if lawlessness and
sedition were attributes of another sphere.

In reference to the recent murderous attack
on Lord French, Viceroy of Ireland, I had a sort
of nodding acquaintance with another, and per-
haps the most terrible Irish crime. I frequently
had occasion to visit a street situated behind
Westland Row, I think it was called Cumberland
Street. Many of the houses in that street were
the property of a Town Councillor and speculative
builder, one James Carey. This was the man

24 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

who some ten years later thrilled the civilised
world with an assassination which he organised
among a chosen band of Invincibles, actually
gave the signal for the crime, and afterwards gave
evidence against his accomplices. It happened
in May, ’82. Lord Frederick Cavendish, the
newly appointed Irish Secretary, had just arrived
from London and was walking through the
Phoenix Park in the direction of the Viceregal
Lodge, arm in arm with Mr. T. H. Burke, the
permanent Under Secretary. From the evidence
at the trial it appeared that the plot was aimed
at the life of Burke, but Lord Frederick inter-
vening in his friend’s defence, himself became a
victim. They were both attacked and fatally
stabbed, with formidable surgical dissecting
knives, by four Invincibles. The sensation
caused by this assassination was world-wide.
The Irish Party at once issued a manifesto ex-
pressing the utmost abhorrence of the crime,
and the Government offered a reward of £10,000
for the apprehension of the criminals.

The Dublin detective force (the “ C ” division
of the Metropolitan Police) had its headquarters
at the Castle, and it would be difficult to find a
more able, vigilant or braver body of men. I
had been in their quarters several times, a cousin
of mine being an Inspector, and I am certain
that careless to danger as they seemed, they

OLD DUBLIN DAYS

always walked with their lives in their hands.
They gradually closed in their net, and in Febru-
ary, 1883, eight men were charged with the
murders. I was then in South Africa, little
thinking that the sequel to the drama was to be
played on the shores of my adopted country.

James Carey, the moving spirit of the whole
dastardly affair, crowned the edifice of his in-
famy by turning “ approver,” an euphemism for
informer. As the result of his evidence, which
implicated the Land League, Joe Brady, the
actual murderer, and four others were executed.
A dramatic scene occurred in Court when Carey
was on his way to the witness-box. He passed
so close to the crowded dock that the prisoners
grabbed at him, and would have had him had not
a timely police sergeant pulled him aside. Had
Brady and the other prisoners dragged Carey
into the dock he would have been torn to pieces
in open Court. After the trial the authorities
hid Carey away from the vengeance of the In-
vincibles, now concealing him in one gaol only
to transfer him to some other house of detention
deemed more secure. The secret of his hiding
place was well kept, yet it was said that Carey
could not have landed at any port in the world
without being attacked. The Invincibles did not
trouble to find his lair. Instead they kept a
vigilant watch on his wife and children, confident

26 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

that at some time, be it soon or late, Carey
would rejoin them. When the ill-starred family
took boat for South Africa an Invincible named
O’Donnell also took his passage. O’Donnell, it
would appear, was not sure of his man until the
boat, the Melrose Castle (Capt. Rose) had reached
Port Elizabeth, when O’Donnell shot Carey dead
in the anchorage on 29th July, 1883. This was a
sensation for South Africa indeed ! O’Donnell
was taken back to England, whither also went
Capt. Rose, the district surgeon of Port Elizabeth
and other witnesses. O’Donnell paid the death
penalty in the following December.

I frequently accompanied my father to the
various places of amusement in Dublin, and saw
my first pantomime at the old Theatre Royal,
afterwards destroyed by fire. On that occasion
I also experienced my first love attack, instigated
by the tinsel beauty of the Fairy Queen, whose
ravishing smile, however, was impartially dis-
tributed among some hundreds of packed mem-
bers of the audience. I was particularly im-
pressed by the vastness of the stage, upon which,
in such dramas as “ After Dark,” hansom cabs
careered, and a most realistic train thundered
by. On opera nights the upper gallery was the
undisputed possession of the students from
Trinity College, who, in the acts, gave a very
creditable operatic performance of their own.

OLD DUBLIN DAYS

These were the days when Town and Gown con-
flicts had not entirely died out, and any ag-
gressiveness on the part of the “ gods ” on these
occasions called forth only a passive resistance.
One particularly disturbing habit of theirs was to
fling from the gallery, generally aimed at some
bald-headed gentleman in the stalls, tissue-paper
bags filled with flour, which burst like shells on
impact, scattering clouds of white dust over the
theatre.

In connection with this old theatre, I witnessed
a most impressive spectacle. It was on the
occasion of the farewell performance of the
famous prima donna, Madame Titiens. She
was a German singer of the first rank, but of
Hungarian parentage. Her success in London
was a triumph, and thereafter she made her home
in England, being associated with Mapleson in
the management of operatic ventures. I forget
what role she had played on the particular even-
ing I refer to, but she was an ideal interpreter of
such characters as Norma, Fidelio, Margarita,
Ortrud, etc. It must have been in the early
seventies, for she died in 1877. No sooner had
she emerged from the stage-door and entered her
carriage than the crowd unharnessed the horses
and drew the vehicle by hand to her hotel, the
Shelbourne. In front of the hotel a vast con-
course soon assembled, and in response to their

28 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

shouts the singer appeared on the portico of the
hotel, facing the wide expanse of Stephen’s Green,
a sea of faces, and a full moon in a cloudless sky.
She paused for a few moments as if struggling
with her emotions, then the full, rich voice broke
forth in the tender strains of “ The Last Rose of
Summer.” The night and the multitude were
perfectly still, and the pathetic harmony lingered
on the air with entrancing effect. When she had
finished there was an apparently lengthy pause
of deep silence. Then thousands of throats burst
forth with a mighty roar of tributes and farewells.
It was a scene likely to linger long in the memory.

Titiens was not alone in being honoured by the
crowd in dragging her carriage. I remember a
similar tribute was paid to Barry Sullivan, the
tragedian (of whom more anon) at Liverpool.
He was an ideal Richard III.

It was also in the seventies that the brothers
Gunn built and opened the Gaiety Theatre in
Dublin, a replica of its London namesake, which
was under the management of Michael Gunn. The
opening performance of the Dublin Gaiety was
by Mrs. John Wood in Poll and her Partner Joe.
I was particularly pleased with the number and
variety of the stage traps in this theatre, as
exemplified by an artiste named Collyer in a
ballet d’action called The Vampire. He dived
from lofty cliffs right through the stage, only

OLD DUBLIN DAYS

the next moment to be shot twenty feet high
through a star-trap with startling effect. It
was at this theatre, too, I first saw a rising
comedian, E. W. Royce, who afterwards made
such a hit in London with Nelly Farren. He was
then playing Prince Paul in Offenbach’s Grand
Duchess, with either Julia Matthews or Emily
Soldene in the title role.

The old Queen’s Theatre was devoted to melo-
drama. A one-time proprietor of this theatre.
Carry Nelson, I afterwards met in the early days
of the Rand, at a time when Fortune had not
been too kind to her. The chief music hall of
those days was the Harp, off Grafton Street, but
the only lasting impression I have of it is a con-
fusion of noisy vocalism and an atmosphere dense
with tobacco smoke, mingled with the fumes of
strong liquor. At the Rotunda variety enter-
tainments were performed, and it was there I saw
the Wizard of the North, Professor Anderson, a
noted illusionist of that date.

As I was, even then, an omnivorous reader, I
read with pleasure a clever periodical entitled
Zozimus, a satirical illustrated weekly. The
current newspapers. The Freeman’s Journal,
Saunders^ News Letter, The Irish Times, etc., all
fiercely political, had little attraction for me
in those days. There was then, as now, a
plethora of ultra-sensational literature published

30 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

especially for boys, and among these I browsed not
wisely but too well. A wholesome corrective to
this trash was, however, taken, from my earliest
years, in the form of good standard literature.
My schooling was obtained from the Oblate
Fathers, at their seminary in Lower Mount Street.
I had a rooted objection to all sorts of learning
and particularly regarded the study of grammar
as a shameful waste of time which could be so
much better spent in the ways dear to boyhood.
I must have imbibed knowledge unconsciously
from the fount supplied by the good Fathers,
for when afterwards I had occasion to rub up my
learning for the preliminary examination for
Woolwich I was amazed equally at the extent of
my acquirements and the facility with which I
unearthed them from the hiding places in my
brain.

It was at this school that, probably after an
overdose of The Red Rover that I established
a pirate’s lair. The school had an extensive
cellarage, in the remotest depths of which were
stored a number of large, empty casks, probably
old wine bins. To these dark receptacles I and
two other desperate young ruffians gradually con-
veyed a store of purloined foodstuffs principally
bread and cold meat, with bottles of water to
wash it down. Having got together as many stores
as the risks permitted, and armed with a rusty

OLD DUBLIN DAYS

old blunderbus found in the cellar, we decided
to become outlaws from society, especially schol-
astic society. We utterly disappeared from the
upper regions, and crouched in our piratical
cave with an awed delight, listening for the
footsteps of pursuers. Two nights and one day
we lurked in the gloom. When our eyes became
accustomed to the semi-darkness we discovered
the source of mysterious noises which often
puzzled, and as often frightened us. It was rats.
Rats not in single spies, but in whole battalions.
Rats which sat up like kangaroos and cleaned
their whiskers as if preparing for a boy meal. It
was too much for the pirate gang. We emerged
into daylight and threw ourselves upon the
mercy of the Court.

The Court was justly indignant. When it
came to my turn to face the irate Superior, who
was armed with a cane of appalling litheness, I
deemed discretion the better part. I turned tail
and fled down the schoolroom. Father H. after
me, up the aisles and down the middle, at a
good sprinting pace. The Father was out of
training and the shorter his breath the more his
anger lengthened. But he had the longer legs,
and after a chase exciting to everyone present,
I was collared. The Father, in his fury, lashed
me across the face with his cane. I retaliated
with a sharp slate, drawing blood. At that dismal

32 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

sight I collapsed and was sent home, and eventu-
ally expelled. My father sent me upstairs to my
bedroom. I pulled down the blind and spent
the remainder of the afternoon peering through
an uplifted comer of it, nervously awaiting the
arrival of the police to arrest me.

CHAPTER III

Homeland Adventures

Among the familiar figures of my boyhood’s days,
at this period were Sir William Wilde, driving
about Dublin a pair of spanking horses, his long
ringlets falling over his coat-collar. He was a
distinguished surgeon and his wife a favourite
poetess of that day, her poems, signed “ Esper-
ansa,” being much admired. Their son inherited
talent from both parents and was the afterwards
notorious, gifted and ill-fated, Oscar.

My father next decided to take in hand himself,
at least for a time, the course of my education.
He had neither fixed hours nor curriculum and
our times of study often degenerated into dis-
courses on literature, mostly fiction. I do not
doubt now that I gained a considerable fund of
knowledge, of a varied kind from these conver-
sations. They, however, fanned into flame my
love for adventure, and notably for sea adventure.
I devoured a tremendous lot of trashy sea stories
at this time, but I can honestly say that none of
them so powerfully affected me as that classic
of the sea. Two Years Before the MasU by

34 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

Richard Dana. Among my favourite books
were Ivanhoe, The Children of the Abbey, Jane
Porter’s Scottish Chief andi Samuel Lover’s Handy
Andy. But it was Dana that drove me to sea.
Knowing too well that my parents would never
consent to such a step I prowled surreptitiously
among the shipping at the North Wall and
eventually succeeded in finding a captain, who
wanted a boy. He must have wanted him badly,
for he asked no questions but bade me come on
board at once as he was about to sail. I had
time only to post a hurried scrawl to my people,
stating the bald fact that I had “ gone to sea.”
They were left in the dark as to whether I was
bound for Archangel, Antwerp or Anglesey, and
did not know the name of the vessel, for I did
not know it myself.

I later found that the ship’s name was, let us
say, the Elizabeth Jones. She was a fairly large
schooner, of graceful lines, and, as was speedily
proved, capable of holding her own in a heavy
sea. I had no sea-kit, nothing but what I stood
up in, but I found the captain and his five of
a crew to be kindly people, until the vagaries
of the weather swamped their equanimity. I
was allotted a bunk in the forecastle which con-
tained a remarkably thin pallet and blanket,
and was told to make myself useful in the galley.
Occasionally one of the hands looked in and gave

HOMELAND ADVENTURES

me sadly needed instructions in the culinary art.
I succeeded in serving a fairly decent meal, pro-
duced with much perspiration and perplexity,
and I can say, without undue vanity, that it was
the best meal dished up while I was on board, for
after we got into open water there were no more
meals cooked.

We were bound for London, the Mecca of my
adventurous aspirations. But we had not left
the North Wall more than a couple of hours when
bad weather set in. The crew displayed a sudden
activity which to another might have been
ominous, but to me was exhilarating. I “ lent
a hand ” on the halyards, got cuffed when I laid
hold of the wrong one, and was kicked aside
when I got in the way, as I was perpetually
doing. But these became minor discomforts
when I noticed the lowering sky, felt the shrieking
wind and tried to get my balance on the con-
vulsively pitching and rolling vessel. It appeared
that we had struck one of these fierce gales for
which the Irish Channel is notorious. Soon the
schooner, under bare poles, was blown completely
out of her course, while two men at the wheel,
with great exertion, kept a steerage way. The
seas washed clean over her, flooding not only the
decks, but the ’tween decks, and the boat rattled
as if she carried a cargo of ironmongery. I did not
stand the strain long, and crept below, miserable

36 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

with my first, and last, attack of sea-sickness.
I was no use on deek anyhow. I erept into my
bunk, where the mattress was sodden with salt
water, and as somebody fastened the hatch
against further incursions, the subsequent pro-
eeedings interested me but little in my blaek hole.
Death, I thought, would have been a boon.
Oceasionally there was a lull when one or another
of the oil-skinned erew eame down for a brief
rest and smoke. It was impossible to light a fire
in the galley, and all the men had in the way of
meals were sea-biseuits, saturated with brine,
some tinned salt meat and water. The wind
never seemed to eease its wild roar and the gale
appeared to me to have lasted a week. At last
one night we saw the sky red with the reflection
from many foundry fires, and before many hours
we had anehored in the Mersey, miserable, but
safe. I lost no time in making for the shore. All
the glamour of a sailor’s life to be found in books
had been ruthlessly swept away by the grim
reality, and I never again hankered after the
merehant serviee. And I was never again, like
Capt. Coreoran, siek at sea.

I eame ashore near Warrington and set out
on foot, weary and penniless, to seek a widowed
aunt who lived at Cardiff, whose address I knew.
How long it took me to get there I do not know,
for time and the ineidents of my long, hungry.

HOMELAND ADVENTURES

tramp through strange English scenes, were ever
afterwards to me but the figments of a dream. I
certainly must have met a number of kindly
people, for I did not starve. The only recollection
I have of Cardiff is that of a number of oilskin
suits hung up in the dealers’ shops, looking as if
a pirate crew of some strength in numbers had
recently been hanged by the neck. My aunt
scolded me, coddled me, and telegraphed to my
people, and I was packed off to Dublin by the
Holyhead packet, a fuller-fed, immeasurably more
comfortable, and a hardier boy, than when I left
my native shores. The Ronan family killed no
fatted calf for the prodigal. They regarded me
austerely, and my father ordered me to my bed-
room, with the menacing remark that he would
attend to my case later. I had much opportunity
for meditation while with my aunt, and in
crossing the Channel, and to reflect on the amount
of anxiety my reckless departure must have
caused my father and mother, to say nothing of
my sisters and brother. Consequently I bore
the heavy caning which I presently received
with the comfortless fortitude induced by the
knowledge that I thoroughly deserved it. I bear
a scar from that thrashing to this day.

I was a little over twelve when I turned my
thoughts to authorship. It seemed to me to be the
easiest profession I was acquainted with. I wrote

38 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

the outlines of my story on odds and ends of paper,
and, as I had read somewhere that the greatest
writers were the most careless in their methods,
I somewhat prided myself on those scraps, until
I failed to find any missing portion of the MS.
to unite the links of the tale. I had a separate
hiding place for each literary scrap, and occa-
sionally forgot the locality of a chapter. My
reason for these magpie tactics was that my
father, himself the most casual of persons, insisted
that my private studies should have a definite
aim, and, like most artistic temperaments, did
not consider literature a practical occupation.
Gradually I got some semblance of a cohesive
plot together. Scraps were now discarded for
fair foolscap — if ruled with money columns dis-
tinction was added to the page. These were now
secreted in bulk in a disused corn-bin in a dark
corner of the stable. My literary work had to be
carried out in chance moments for fear of too
much writing assiduity arousing my father’s
suspicions.

At last the deed was done. Not only was the
story written, but safely posted to the tender
mercies of The Young Folks’ Budget in far-off
London, that receptacle for mountains of rejected
first efforts in fiction. I was naturally excited for
a week or so after dispatching my first-born,
expecting that the London editor would not waste

HOMELAND ADVENTURES

a moment in sending me his eongratulations.
But as the weeks slipped by and no word came
from London the matter gradually faded from
my mind, occasionally reviving when other
boyish pursuits dulled. I was no nerve-racked
litterateur, biting his nails in a garret. I stuck
to my studies, and drawing gradually usurped
the place of literature in my affections. Fully
six months had passed when the postman brought
me a Young Folks’ Budget containing my story.
There it was in print and illustrated ! It was
called “ Under the Sea,” and related the adven-
tures of a boy who found marvels under the water
into which he had walked while dreaming, safe
and sound, on the beach. And there he was,
right under the ocean, as big and black as the ar-
tist and the printer could make him ! The post-
man next brought me a cheque — like my story, a
small one. With these treasures in my possession
I confronted my father and confessed my fault.
At first he looked thunderous ; then his brow
cleared and he broke into a peal of laughter. All
was well. It is my private opinion that my
father was more proud of that story than myself.
I have written and published many stories since
then, but never got anything from them to com-
pare with the satisfaction my first afforded me.

Then followed a course of severe study, in the
course of which my father died. I decided to

40 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

enter the army, despite my mother’s objections
to the military life, and my departure for Wool-
wich was the virtual severing of all domestic
ties, the intangible bonds which bind individuals
to the little community, long loved and remem-
bered, of “ Home.” There is little to record
about my military service, save a tremendous
amount of study, a task in which I was con-
siderably handicapped, having to retrieve various
side branches of education which I had either
missed, deliberately shirked, or, merely skimmed
over during the course of my father’s wayward
teachings. In the Royal Regiment of Artillery
I fondly imagined that I had found a career
which exactly fitted my yearnings. There was
plenty of work, and hard work too, but also
plenty of fun, and companions who made one cry
out with Burns, “ O Life ! How pleasant is thy
morning.” I was blessed with a chum who shared
my studies, difficulties and pleasures, and our sky
was a cloudless one. I studied hard and with good
results, for in the Artillery College examinations
at Woolwich (I state it with all modesty) I took
all the points, “Full Credit,” in the examination
of the Royal Laboratory, and was duly chaired.
In the Royal Gun Factory I got a “ very good ”
certificate. I remember while undergoing that
course I was standing one day on a huge metal
slab, deeply engaged in taking notes of the

HOMELAND ADVENTURES

discourse of the peripatetic lecturer, who moved
among the flames and crashes of the fiery foundry,
dominated by the giant Nasmith steam-hammer.
For some time I had been disagreeably conscious
of a stench as if somebody was shoeing a horse,
and doing it badly. Presently my feet got un-
comfortably warm. Then I found that I was
taking notes on top of a black, but hot, armour-
plate, and that the soles of my boots were nearly
scorched through. In the Royal Carriage De-
partment I was also successful, and scored a
“ very good,” though gun-carriages, ambulances
and transport wagons did not possess the attrac-
tion for me afforded by the manufacture of guns,
fuzes, etc. The Royal Arsenal was a perpetual
source of interest to me, as may be imagined
when the ordinary sight-seer, lucky enough to
obtain a permit, takes a week to casually glance
over its mysteries. Very attractive, too, was the
Rotunda, with its beautiful models of such great
fortifications as Malta and Gibraltar, every detail
being reproduced in precise miniature.

CHAPTER IV

As A Gunner

A RESUME of my life at Woolwich, varied by a
long and short course at the School of Gunnery,
Shoeburyness, and a brief spell of duty with my
brigade at Plymouth, Portsmouth and Dover,
would be of little interest to the reader. But I
ean recall certain incidents which are well worth
relating, not in their chronological order, for I
w'as frequently passing to and fro between Wool-
wich and other stations on experimental work,
and am not sure of dates. One day I had the
dismal opportunity of witnessing row after row
of the bodies of men, women and children all
drowned, laid out on the floors of the Arsenal,
awaiting identification by friends and relatives.
It was a dreadful scene, and was again brought
vividly to my mind by a similar one years after,
when I inspected the rows of bodies laid out in
the Wanderers’ Skating Rink, Johannesburg,
the victims of the great dynamite explosion of
1896. The Princess Alice was an iron steamer
belonging to the London Steamboat Company,
and on the evening of 3rd September, 1878, was

AS A GUNNER

returning from Sheerness with a party of ex-
cursionists. There were 900 people on board,
mostly women and children. The band was
playing and dancing was in progress when the
steamer got to Gallion’s Reach, a mile below
Woolwich Arsenal. Without any warning a
great ocean steamer, the Bywell Castle, crashed
into the Princess Alice amidships, cutting her
almost in two and sinking her immediately. It
was a harrowing sight to behold that multitude
of merry-makers plunged suddenly into the
chemically-poisoned waters of the reach. Many
deeds of great heroism were recorded in the at-
tempts at rescue, but only 200 were saved, and
many of those afterwards died from the effects
of the immersion. The bodies recovered were,
as I have already stated, laid out in the Arsenal.
In all, some 640 bodies were recovered, many of
them being buried at Woolwich. Many shops
in London were entirely closed, all the inmates
having perished in the disaster. The Lord Mayor
raised a fund for the dependents, and a sum of
£38,000 was speedily subscribed. At the official
inquiry the blame was allotted to the Princess
Alice, for not having ported her helm in time.

At Dover, I saw from the top of the Castle
keep a sight which is never likely to be repeated.
It was the advent of Cleopatra’s needle from its
centuries-old residence in Egypt into British

44 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

waters. Five tugs were busily dragging and
steering the cigar-shaped vessel to London. They
looked like an escort conveying a deserter to safe
custody, and the obelisk was indeed a deserter,
for it broke away from its convoy in the Bay of
Biscay and was counted among the missing. It
left Alexandria aboard a specially designed vessel,
the Cleopatra, which had to be abandoned in the
Bay during a violent gale in October, 1877. The
derelict was found by the Fitzmaurice, six lives
being lost in the attempt to recover it. It was
towed to Ferrol and thence to London, arriving
there in January, 1878. A sum of £2,000 was
awarded as salvage, and was well earned as the
obelisk alone weighed 186 tons. It was erected
on the Thames Embankment in September, 1878.

Writing of Dover Castle brings to my mind’s
eye a grizzled old gunner who took a turn of duty
on top of the Keep. It was his job to point out
objects of interest to visitors and, incidentally,
to see that they did no mischief. After a lengthy
and stereotyped harrangue he would bring forth
his coup de maitre. “ And, now, ladies and
gentlemen,” he would say, “ You ” (waving his
stick in a spacious manner) “ behold three
kingdoms.”

After a perplexed glance, if it was a fine day,
at the church spires of Calais on the opposite
shore, the visitor would protest that they saw

AS A GUNNER

but one kingdom, France. The fact that they
were gazing on a republic never occurred to
them.

“ Three kingdoms,” went on the ancient war-
rier impressively, “ the Kingdom of England,
the Kingdom of France, and the Kingdom of
Heaven.” This invariably produced largesse.

Lying, one beautiful summer Sunday morning,
on the top of the fort at Eastbourne, supposed
to be improving my mind with a book, I lazily
watched a sailing boat pass out to sea. It con-
tained a noisy pleasure party, men, women and
children. When some distance out I saw the
boat suddenly turn over. Immediately there
was a race of boats from the shore to the rescue.
They only saved a little child who was borne
up on the surface by its outspread clothing ;
the remainder, fourteen in all, were drowned.
It was supposed that, for some reason, probably
skylarking, a rush was made to one side of the
boat, causing it to capsize, while the large sail
beat down and entangled the struggling people
in the water.

Impressed on my memory by a prodigious
amount of hard work is the advent of the famous
80-ton gun to the School of Gunnery in 1877.
It was brought from the Royal Gun Factory at
Woolwich by a specially constructed barge named
the Magog. The gun, on its carriage, was run

46 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

into the barge on rails, which were continued
from the shore along the floor of the barge.
Arriving at Shoeburyness it was our task to bring
the monster ashore, a tremendous job, as the gun-
carriage weighed nearly as much as the gun.
But it was accomplished by the aid of a com-
bination of winches. At one stage of its progress
up the beach the rails on one side sunk a little
and the whole contraption looked as if it would
topple over. But the invaluable hydraulic- jacks
of Mr. Tangye soon put matters straight. We
were constantly moving that dead-weight of a
gun about the marshes on experimental work,
chiefly in testing naval armour-plates. A formid-
able target was built of alternate layers of steel
and teak, 27ft. thick, and the huge projectile
punched a hole right through it as if it were a
biscuit, making a tunnel through which a man
could creep.

The great day of the 80-tonner was an ex-
hibition day, when the War Office people came
down to see some trial shots. The Secretary for
War (then Mr. afterwards Lord, Gathorne Hardy)
came with a party of friends, including several
ladies. For their accommodation a temporary
platform had been constructed in the rear of the
gun — which was on the beach pointing seaward —
composed of planking supported by casks. The
gun was loaded by hand, its mechanical appliances

AS A GUNNER

for that purpose not being in position, and was
to be fired electrically from a hut on the marshes,
a considerable distance to the rear. Consequently
when the gun was loaded nobody about the
monster knew precisely when it would be dis-
charged, and there was a long and painful wait
of tense expectancy. Ladies, and even their
civilian escorts, covered their ears with their
hands as a safeguard against the impending
terrific crash. But there was no crash — simply a
lengthy, sullen “ Bo-o-om.” But the aerial
concussion was terrific. The hastily organised
platform collapsed, and among the displaced
planks and casks, top hats, ladies’ frilliaries,
walking sticks and parasols were blended in wild
confusion. However, nobody was seriously in-
jured, but there was much damage to property.
In the adjacent village of Shoeburyness several
shop-fronts were blown bodily inwards by the
concussion, the fragile contents of a chemist’s
shop, a stationer’s and public-house being the
chief sufferers.

Immediately after the explosion several of us
at the gun, where we were scarcely conscious
of the concussion, had to mount horses and gallop
out to where the projectile first grazed the sands
seaward. The huge shot could be distinctly seen
in the air and made a noise as it travelled resem-
bling that made by an express train tearing along

48 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

on a frosty night. The sands hereabout were
left bare by the receding tide to a great extent
forming a wide table-land, but when the tide
returned it crept in on both sides of this plain
and then suddenly and swiftly spread over
the whole surface.

The projectile first grazed the sand at about
2,000 yards out and then went ricocheting away
out to sea, its progress being marked by high
columns of shining water wherever it touched
the surface. We found and measured the first
impact, which was a hole 27 feet long, the same
length as the gun which caused it, and then it
was a hard gallop back to the shore in a race
with the treacherous tide which meanwhile had
sneaked in all around us.

A few statistics of this father of heavy ordnance,
may be of interest. The projectile used on that
day (22nd September, 1877) was a Palliser shell
weighing 1650 lbs., propelled by a cartridge
containing 300 lbs. of cube powder. It took
twelve men to “ ram home ” the charge. The
gun was used only once in anger, at the bombard-
ment of Alexandria in July, 1882, from the deck
of H.M.S. Inflexible. The shell ploughed up new
streets in that city, but the expense of firing
the rounds and important innovations, chiefly
in the manner of loading from the breech, led to
the discarding of this type of ordnance. Although

AS A GUNNER

a little later a 100 ton gun was built, the 80-tonner
may be regarded as the last of the type known as
the Woolwich guns, now long since obsolete.
Our work was not wasted, for an artilleryman is
always learning new things and perpetually add-
ing to his experience, so that it may truthfully
be said he is never perfect.

The work at the School of Gunnery was ex-
ceedingly strenuous, but to a healthy youngster
it helped to lay the foundation of a sound physical
condition for his after years. Particularly trying
were the bitter winter days on the Essex marshes,
with the driving sleet slashing viciously at you
all day and one’s hands raw and sore from hauling
on half-frozen ropes, hoisting tackles and touch-
ing ironwork. My most blissful time was in the
evenings when we had to prepare our work for
the morning’s “ schooling,” at 6 a.m., in geometry,
physics, etc. With a friend, I hired a room in the
village, to get away from any “ ragging ” that
might be going and there we often studied until
midnight. Sleep did not trouble us in those days.
There is a peculiarity about sleep in the School
of Gunnery. There the guns are roaring day and
night, engaged in experimental work and in the
testing of armour-plate or artillery material.
But when from any cause the guns ceased their
roar at night the sudden silence awoke most of
the sleepers in the School buildings.

50 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

I thoroughly enjoyed my life at “ Shoebury,”
with its week-end trips to London and occasional
trips to Dover, Portsmouth or the experimental
grounds on the slippery shingle of Lydd, near
New Romney, in Kent. In the latter place it was
necessary to wear small planks strapped to our
boots in order to get over the polished round
stones of the shingle. Before leaving this phase
of my existence I may be permitted to jot down
some salient landmarks erected in my memory.
The Tichborne case in 1867 and the following
years up to 1874, in which Arthur Orton or Castro,
a corpulent butcher, laid claim to the family
estates on the death of Sir Alfred Tichborne,
caused a tremendous sensation not only in Eng-
land but all the world over. At that time the
comedians, Felix and Marshall, were on the top
wave of popularity, playing the two gendarmes
in Offenbach’s Genevive de Brabant, with Emily
Soldene in the title role. The gendarmes always
captured the house with their topical duet, and
were nightly greeted with roars of applause for
the following verse : —

“ There’s a man weighs eight and twenty stone,

His name it is Sir Roger,

In Newgate for perjury
He’s lately been a lodger.

They run him in,

For he was not the true Tichborne.’’

AS A GUNNER

It is no matter for wonder that this doggerel
should be acceptable to a public which tolerated,
nay welcomed, such inanities as “ Champagne
Charley,” and the songs given them by George
Leybourne and other so-called lions comique.

CHAPTER V

Recollections of the ’Seventies

The year 1870 is memorable to me for three big
events — the death of Dickens, the outbreak of
the Franco-Prussian War and the founding of
the Graphic. Dickens’ name was then a house-
hold world, and his loss was mourned in innumer-
able households in the British Isles. The mag-
netism of his books, which is losing a great deal
of its force in the present day, was felt from the
castle to the cot. The war came as a bombshell
to England, and caused a tremendous excitement.
The English railway stations were crowded
with Germans called up to fight for the Father-
land, and the railway stations in Ireland filled
with young volunteers on their way to fight for
France. The smoke-dried roofs of the stations
rang daily with the strains of the Wacht am
Rhein, and the Marseillaise. Public opinion,
on the whole, was in favour of France. The
appearance of a new illustrated weekly paper
was at first regarded as a piece of impudence. It
was conceived impossible that any competitor
could vie with success against such a firmly

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE “ ’70’s ” 58

established rival as The Illustrated London News,
which in most English homes was as sacrosanct as
Punch itself. But the war gave The Graphic its
opportunity, and its spirited and artistic battle
drawings and general excellence soon placed it
securely in public favour.

Much curiosity was excited in England by the
first visit of a Shah of Persia, Nasur-ul-Deen, in
1873. The catchword to be heard everywhere
was, “ Have you seen the Shah ” which at once
ousted its silly predecessor “ Where did you get
that hat.” The movements of himself and his
three wives were faithfully chronicled by the
entire European Press from the moment he left
Teheran till his arrival in London. The visit
of the Shah Ahmed Mirza recently was a very
tame affair in comparison. The first Shah was
accommodated at Buckingham Palace, Queen
Victoria being at Balmoral, and his lavish display
of jewels gave rise to all sorts of fairy tales of his
great wealth and how he squandered it. He was
burlesqued in an extravaganza entitled “ Kissi-
Kissi,” Mr. Royce playing the part of the poten-
tate. The Shah revisited England sixteen years
later, but was then hustled up to Scotland so as
not to clash with another important royal visitor,
the young German Kaiser William II., who so
hopelessly lost his popularity with the British in
after years.

54 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

One day I saw at Dover a man who fired my
imagination, as he did a large section of the
public, not only on account of his adventurous
disposition, but of his strikingly commanding
appearance. This was Colonel Fred Burnaby,
who had returned to England from his perilous
ride to Khiva in 1875, a dangerous mission which
the Russians checkmated. When within sight
of the cliffs of Dover his soldier servant — the
constant and faithful companion of his adventures
— died after a protracted illness. I remember the
sorrow shown by Burnaby, who chartered a
special train, rushed up to London and then
returned to Dover with a funeral party of the
Life Guards to do honour to his servant’s re-
mains. Burnaby met a glorious death, pierced
by many spears, but fighting to the last, at Abu
Klea, in the Soudan, in January 1885, when en-
gaged in the desperate expedition to relieve
Gordon at Khartoum.

One more memory of those old days. It was
in Portsmouth that I, a lad, saw Vesta Tilley, a
girl, make what must have been her first appear-
ance at the Theatre there. She was in masculine
attire and sang a dude (then termed “ swell ”)
song entitled “ Lah-di-Dah,” which was first
sung by Nellie Power, a favourite of those days.
I am somewhat diffident as to giving this index
to a lady’s age, but the passing years seemed to

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE “ ’70’s ”

take no toll of the ever youthful Vesta, now Lady
de Frece.

I completed my course of training at the School
of Gunnery, a matter of nearly a year and a half.
I came out on the list in the first ten — eighth to
be exact — and received a first-class certificate as
an Instructor in Gunnery, and I had to “ swot ”
for it, for the examination lasted six weeks and
was a tripartite ordeal — viva voce, written, and
practical work with the guns and their appliances.
Shortly afterwards the powers that be called for
a volunteer to take out to South Africa fifty of
the machine guns of those days, the Gatling. The
first Boer war was then in progress and the War
Office thought the Gatlings would liven things
up a bit. I volunteered my services and they
were accepted. I was ordered to report at once,
with the guns, at Kingstown in Ireland, where I
found the 7th Hussars embarking on transports,
and was attached to them until we reached the
Cape. My transference from Woolwich, where
the guns come from, to Kingstown, did not take
long. I found on arrival that my boat, a cable-
laying steamer, the Calabria (one of our three
transports), would make for sea that night, so I
had just the afternoon to run up to Dublin and
say good-bye to my people. It was a nightmare
rush to the city and back to the port, the hours
seeming to fly past with malicious speed. There

56 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

was barely enough time to rush through my
chief farewells, to get a number of photographs
taken at Chancellor’s studio in Dublin for those
who missed my personal adieux, and then to
regain the ship. I remember mounting the
gangway laden with packages, chiefly remedies for
seasickness which were forced upon me by well-
meaning but futile friends. That night we
steamed out and I saw the last of the old country
through a veil of rain and sea fog. Henceforward
the adventures of my career have Africa for their
stage.

CHAPTER VI

The Gateway of Africa

We were, on the whole, a jolly crowd on the
Calabria, and time never hung dully on our hands.
It certainly did not hang idly on the hands of the
Hussar troopers, for they appeared to be toiling
day and night without cessation, though, of
course, I knew their tasks were taken in reliefs.
They had about 500 horses on board, every one
of which had to be slung to the deck-roof over-
head every night by a broad belly-band to ease the
strain on the legs of the animals caused by the
rolling of the vessel. In addition, the work associa-
ted with cavalry stables was always in progress,
the horses properly groomed and the horse-decks
kept spotlessly clean — no light task in the tropic
zone. I often watched with pity the horses stalled
near the boilers, suffering from the unaccustomed
heat. They used to lift with their teeth the water
trough suspended by hinges from the front of their
stalls, raise it a foot or so, and drop it suddenly,
so as to cause its watery contents to splash over
them, bringing momentary coolness. Col. Bur-
nell and the headquarter staff of the 7th Hussars

58 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

were aboard the Calabria, and there was much
fun going on.

We stopped at St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands,
to coal. A party of youngsters went ashore to see
the sights, and in being pulled ashore a wave
washed over us, which turned my gay blue uni-
form of superfine cloth into a ruined field-grey.
The only sights I have a recollection of on that
barren rock were huge stacks of coal and a Portu-
guese sentry. The aspect of the latter, as he
lounged about with loosened belt and bare feet,
shocked my sense of military decorum. We
entered a cafe and organised an entente with
some of the island damsels, which culminated in a
dance. The ladies wore apparently but one gar-
ment, resembling a nightdress, and they, too,
were bare-footed.

As at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball at
Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, our revelry was
disturbed by the call to arms. An urgent message
from the ghip hurried us aboard. Then we learnt
that the news had been received of the death of
General Sir George Pomeroy Colley. He was
killed during the night attack on Majuba on
26th February, 1881. On board the transport
there was much activity, as it was supposed that
the British operations would be speeded up to
strike a counter-blow, and the Hussars were kept
busy on deck with grindstones putting an edge

THE GATEWAY OF AFRICA

to their swords. To our disgust, when we arrived
at Capetown, on March 22, we found that peace
had been signed on that date. Crowds of people
came out in boats to the transport and laughed
at our discomfiture. But it was no laughing
matter. Persons who remember those days will
agree that the present-day racialism in this
country is a mild affair compared to what it was
then. Dutchmen then spat at the name of
Englishman, and Englishmen cursed the name
of Gladstone. As years Went by, and the gold
discoveries stimulated the whole sub-continent,
this racial resentment died down, until it was
again revived by the causes leading to the second
Boer War. Personally, throughout my many
adventures in this country, I have experienced
nothing but willing hospitality from the Dutch-
speaking section of the community. Collectively
they might be hostile ; individually they were not.
The 7th Hussars did not land at Cape Town,
but continued their voyage to Durban, from
where they went into camp at Pinetown, while I,
and the machine guns, were quartered at the
Castle. There I assisted in receiving the guns
and stores from the front, and many a gun was
marked with white bullet splashes. Indeed, I
afterwards examined the bullet marks on the
houses in Potchefstroom, which testified to the
hotness of the firing, and I believe those marks

60 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

are still to be seen there. Capetown at that period
was a quaint place, very different from its present
appearance. High stoeps bordered the sidewalks,
and as these were at various heights one had to
walk circumspectly to avoid a nasty accident.
One dark night I stepped off a stoep on to as I
thought, the ground level, but a drop of three
feet gave me a nasty jar. To avoid a similar
occurrence I crossed the street to the Parade
ground where I flattered myself, all was plain
sailing. But I had progressed but a few steps
when my foot caught in a low-hung chain and I
measured my length in the dust. The chief
hotels, such as the Masonic and the St. George’s,
were reached by high flights of steps, and to
descend them, after dining not wisely but too
well, must have been a trying and a dangerous
ordeal. The Town House was of ancient days
and quite unfitted for the purposes of such a large
community. The Theatre Royal, off Green-
market Square, under the lesseeship of Captain
Disney Roebuck, was more worthy of the city,
but had much room for improvement. It was
afterwards burned down. I remember they were
playing The Pirates of Penzance and Patience, the
latter not long before had its premiere in London,
and playing them well, during my stay.

The Cape Argus and the Cape Times under the
respective editorships of Mr. Edmund Powell

THE GATEWAY OF AFRICA

(now Senator Powell) and Mr. F. York St. Leger
guided Capetown public opinion, as the same
journals do to-day. There was a weekly satirical
journal, The Lantern, founded by Mr. A. A.
Geary, and after his demise, in 1880, purchased
by the ill-fated Thomas McCombie. The Lantern
was noted for its boldly-drawn cartoons by
Hugh Fisher (“ Skit ”) and when that artist
wedded the actress, Ada Ward, and left for
Australia, he was succeeded by a gifted South
African artist, the late W. H. Schroeder (“Wil-
lie ”), with whom I was thrown much in contact
in after years. The colony was then in a state
of high prosperity on account of the working of
the famous Kimberley diamond fields, and money
was plentiful. Yet it was not until 1885, five
years later, that the railway from Capetown
reached Kimberley, a distance of 647 miles,
although the diamond diggings had been in
operation since 1870. The previous terminus
was Wellington. It is worth noting, when we
consider the immense rail mileage of to-day, that
at the end of the seventies there were only 115
miles of railway in the Cape Colony. The Trans-
vaal and Orange River Colony had not then a
single mile of railway, and the terminius of
Natal’s main line was Maritzburg, the ox-wagon
being the connecting link between the rail-ends
and the interior. And to-day the Union owns
9,542 miles of open railroads.

62 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

I was busily engaged in the early days of my
stay in Capetown in social functions, and took
part in many amateur theatrical performances.
I made many frineds, including the late Mr. W.
Crosby, afterwards City Magistrate, and Mr. T. J.
O’Reilly — the latter, I believe, was Mayor in
1881, and he entertained the members of the
company in which I was playing to a feast in
which Cape sherry played a prominent part. I
had, of coui'se, no experience of this insidious
liquor and it took fully a week before its fumes
evaporated from my brain. Mr. O’Reilly was one
of the most genial and kind-hearted Irishmen I
have met and his name is still venerated in Cape-
town. Having much spare time on hand I fell
in love. When it came to a question of marriage
the lady and her relatives insisted that I should
leave the service. I weakly consented and felt,

what my C.O. called me, a “ d d fool.” He

was Colonel J. F. Owen, R.A., a splendid soldier
and a thorough gentleman. But the lure of the
lady had more power over my actions than the
advice of the Colonel, and I shortly afterwards
became a civilian, to my great regret, a regret
which was not mitigated by the thought that
had I remained in the Army my bones might now
be lying in the desert of the Soudan. After all,
being able to pen these reminiscences is a better
position than being buried among the sand dunes.

. , -» ■ , -
■S;

. • I

i f <

iV ■*

EARI.Y JOHANNESBURG.

By courteous permission of “ South Africa.”
THE FIRST HOTEE.

By courteous permission of “ South Africa.”
THE FIRST RAND CLUB.

To face page 6S.

THE GATEWAY OF AFRICA

Then came the climax. There came a rift in the
lute and our contemplated marriage was broken
off. Thus I found myself, like Othello, with my
occupation gone and an urgent necessity to take
up some other. Verily, for some months, I felt
like a lost sheep. I was given a small theatrical
engagement, but soon found out that I would not
amass a fortune in that line of business. Then I
entered journalism, a profession that also did not
offer much attraction in the way of riches, but I
can honestly say that after nearly forty years of
it if I did not find riches I did find pleasant com-
rades and an enticing profession.

I went to Mr. Powell, of the Cape Argus, stated
my case and was taken on as junior reporter. I
had also gained the approval of Mr. F. J. Dormer,
the Managing Director, a constantly moving force
to be reckoned with on The Argus. His manner
was not reassuring, being to put it mildly, blus-
terous, but it would have been difficult to find a
man with a keener insight of the business side of
a newspaper, or a clearer reader of character.
Mr. Powell handed me over to the chief reporter,
Mr. Edwards, who, in the years to come was to
attain the rank of Managing Director of the Argus
Company. Mr. Edwards, with Mr. Powell acting
as chorus, proceeded to impress upon me the
great importance of a junior reporter’s first step
in journalism. This, I found, consisted in going

64 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

through the newspaper exehanges and snipping
out (with a seissors whose worn blades resembled
hand-saws) any item of interest that might safely
be used in the current issue of the Argus. Even
in the most innocent-looking paragraph, I was
informed, a libel might lurk and its extraction be
followed by disastrous consequences to the Argus
and to the extractor. Personal paragraphs, it
was stated, were much in request owing to the
widespread influence of human vanity. I ven-
tured to observe that that sort of vanity was a
purely feminine quality, but my mentors assured
me that between the sexes in this respect honours
were equal.

I naturally thought I had a soft thing on. It
did not seem a difficult task to loll back in an
easy chair and scan the columns of “ our esteemed
contemporary, ’’that is if drowsiness did not super-
vene. I was speedily undeceived. Mr. Edwards
brought from a far corner an enormous heap of
newspapers, kicked aside the alluring easy-chair,
spread the papers flat on the table, and said : —

“Now all you have to do is to turn over each
page in succession, place your forefinger on top
of the outer column, bring your finger slowly down
the column until it meets a suitable news item —
then make a blue-pencil mark against it. When
you have finished that column start from the
top of the next, your finger slowly descending.

THE GATEWAY OF AFRICA

marking the items as you go, and so on with every
column of every page. Then place the newspapers
carefully aside and repeat the process with the
next paper on the heap. You will be surprised at
the amount of news matter you will extract in
the course of the morning.”

I was surprised — at several things. The erratic
cutting course of the decayed scissors surprised
me, for it could not cut in a straight line, and if it
did not shear through the item I wanted to extract
it would snip out some uninteresting item which
my blue pencil had ignored. I was surprised
that leaning over the table in the pursuit of know-
ledge should give me such a severe “ crik ” in the
back and that “ going over the exchanges ” for a
couple of hours was equivalent to the same period
of sharp walking, so far as the resultant tired
feeling was concerned. But within a week I
became a skilled performer with both scissors
and paste, and developed the rudiments of “ a
nose for news.”

On Saturdays I had to attend to the afternoon
sporting events. Football was in season, and I
was not an admirer of the game, preferring cricket.
I often had to attend to four playing grounds
simultaneously, and in such circumstances I defy
anyone to take an intelligent interest in the
games, to say nothing of becoming enthusiastic.
It was the most difficult thing in the world to

66 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

write readable reports of the matches, reports
that could be read by adepts of the game without
a suspicion of insanity intruding. But I gradually
got into the way of it and, with the aid of club
secretaries and officials I evolved good reports.
At least nobody told me they were bad. On
reading them over I used to feel amazed at the
detail in them. The players, referees and specta-
tors were also amazed, at times, on reading them.

CHAPTER VII

Reporting Recollections

The police courts, the invariable training ground
for junior reporters, furnished much interesting
work. Here, day after day, all sorts and con-
ditions of unfortunate persons, white, black and
coffee-coloured, passed before my vision, dumbly
miserable or glibly eloquent, and the tales of
human failings, sometimes tragic, sometimes
comic, were often extraordinary. Here, thought
I, is not only a training ground for a budding
journalist, but for a fully successful novelist. I
there and then determined to take mental notes
for the novel which I would write in my spare
time. I have been nearly four decades in South
African journalism and during that period have
found no spare time. I have a trunk full of
skeleton plots for novels, but have never found a
succession of spare evenings in which I could
clothe these dry bones in literary padding.

I must confess that this sort of newspaper
work was not quite the thing I had expected.
I was young then, and fired with a noble am-
bition to be a leader of men, pointing out, from

68 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

the depths of a comfortable office chair, the
dangers, pit-falls and avalanches which begirt
the political and social paths of the multitude.
Since then I have known many editors, and have
been an editor myself several times, and have
always found the ambition to be a guide of popu-
lar opinion a mere shrivelled atomy lurking in
some disused, ancient cupboard of the editorial
brain. That ambition, I knew, did exist in the
sanctum of the London Times in the days of
Delane — I am not so sure about it in those later
days, but, anyhow, the climate of South Africa
appears to be inimical to it. The other day Sir
Auckland Geddes, at a London banquet said :
“ I see practically every paper published in
London, and read large parts of most of them,
and it really was extraordinary how simple
things were mis-stated, incompletely stated or
overstated.” Well, if he had had any experience
of newspaper work he would not find the matter
at all extraordinary. When one considers the
errors due to the quantity and variety of matter
in a daily newspaper, often compiled at headlong
speed, the mistakes of inexperienced pressmen,
and also the mistakes of their experienced elders,
often caused by overwork are really automatic,
and the thousand and one changes that occur to
the written word in its progress through the typo-
graphical department — why, then, the wonder is

REPORTING RECOLLECTIONS 69

that there are so few palpable mistakes. The
reader Avho yawns over his morning or evening
paper would be astounded if every detail of the
work of its production was flashed upon the
screen of his mental vision.

But I liked it all. Journalists, like poets,
musicians, artists, orators and Weary Willies,
are born, not made. There is an attraction about
journalism which, like the lure of Africa, causes
the wanderer to return, no matter how often he
deserts it. I had some amusing experiences
during those callow days, and some not so amus-
ing. A company called, I think, the White Horse
Syndicate, under the aegis of Mr. Wolff Joel, who
was afterwards killed on the Rand, had dis-
covered a reef, suspected of being gold-bearing,
in close vicinity to Cape Town. A luncheon was
given on the scene of enterprise for the purpose of
making it better known to prominent Capetown
merchants. I happened to be the only pressman
with the party. At the luncheon a speech was
made by a member of the Cabinet, the Hon. Col.
Schermbrucker, known as “ the smiling Colonel ”
from the genial expression caused by a permanent
contraction of the muscles of his lip. I was to
learn that he was not always as genial as he
looked. He made an important political state-
ment during the speech, which I duly reported.
When The Argus appeared the Colonel hastily

70 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

telegraphed to his constituents in King Williams-
town that The Argus report was wildly mis-
leading, and he complained to Mr. Powell, my
editor, that he had been misreported. Well, it
was my word only against his — and he a Cabinet
Minister ! Mr. Dormer took the matter in hand,
and his doing so did not improve his temper. I
walked moodily into Adderley Street, trying to
visualise the operation of “ the sack,” and bumped

into Mr. K , one of the merchants who had

attended the luncheon. When I had told my

tale of woe, Mr. K was very indignant. He

said my report was absolutely correct, and he

would prove it. In the afternoon Mr. K

headed a deputation of merchants to Mr. Dormer.
They had all heard the speech, and gave evidence
as to the truth of my report. Their combined
testimony was too much for even the Colonel’s
statement, and in the next issue The Argus nailed
its colours to the mast. I have not the slightest
doubt that the Colonel really believed that he
had said something quite different, and that he
had not let a political cat out of his bag.

One of my pleasantest experiences was a visit
to Mr. Saul Solomon, M.L.A., the eminent Cape
politician, at his house at Greenpoint. I was
startled at first by the massive head, lion-like in
appearance, surmounting a tiny body ensconsed
in the depths of an armchair. Mr. Solomon,

REPORTING RECOLLECTIONS

though stunted in form, had received from Nature
the compensation of a big brain. He at once
detected that his interviewer was a novice and
paternally gave himself considerable trouble to
make my task as easy and pleasant as possible.
He was used to the interviewing operation and I
wasn’t, but from that date I lost all sense of awe
when speaking to a public man.

My best work for The Argus I did not do at all.
This sounds like a “ bull ” but it has a sound basis
of fact. The Africander Bond was holding one
of its annual Congresses at Middelburg (Cape)
and The Argus had made special arrangements
to receive lengthy reports of each day’s proceed-
ings by telegraph, no light task, for the prosiness
of the speakers extended these sittings to an
unconscionable period. The representatives of
two Dutch newspapers, De Express and De
Patriot were engaged to report for us, taking
it in turns to put the messages on the wire. A
day or two before the opening of the congress, I
strolled into our office, feeling somewhat tired
after a heavy day’s reporting in the Courts. The
editor at once sent for me.

“My lad,” he said, “You have just twenty
minutes to pack your bag and catch the train
for Middleburg. One of our Dutch representa-
tives is ill and the other is unable to do our re-
ports. So you must do them.”

72 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

“ Good heavens ! ” I exclaimed. “It is im-
possible, for I do not understand a word of
Dutch.”

“ There is nothing impossible in newspaper
work,” replied Mr. Powell, with all the calmness
of the other fellow who is out of the trouble. “ In
any case I have no one else at present to send but
you, and this is your chance to win your journa-
listic spurs.”

There was no help for it, and with the in-
grained military spirit to obey the last order,
I rushed to my boarding house, tumbled some
clothing into a hand-bag, and was just in time
to catch the train. In the course of the long
journey I discovered several pressmen bound on
the same errand as myself, and in the cheerful
companionship of J. W. M. Tangermann, of the
Cape Times, I speedily lost all sense of appre-
hension, and whatever qualms I felt as to the
success of my mission were banished by my
admiration for Tangermann’s light-heartedness.
This he especially manifested by the singing of
student songs and by attempts to clamber
through the carriage window to gain the clearer
atmosphere of the roof. These attempts were
frustrated by the other occupants of the carriage
hanging on to his feet. Another pressman on
that journey was Mr. J. De Villiers Roos, the
present Auditor-General of the Union.

REPORTING RECOLLECTIONS 73

We found the hotel crowded with Bond dele-
gates from all parts of South Africa, as the con-
gress was to assemble the following morning.
That evening a smoking concert was arranged at
which I made myself popular to two young Hol-
landers. Both were delegates, but from different
parts of the Cape Colony. When they were mak-
ing themselves agreeable to me, and declaring
that I was a jolly good fellow, and all the rest of
it, a bright thought struck me. Here were two
well educated Hollanders who spoke and wrote
English perfectly and were quite at home in the
“ taal ” — why not get them to do the reporting
for me ? I suddenly assumed an expression of
the deepest gloom. They were immediately con-
cerned, fearing colic, at least. I reassured them
and told my tale of woe. They laughed up-
roariously, but at last consented to act as my
deputies ; should one be on his feet in the fervour
of speech-making the other would take notes
and vice versa. I was to call daily at four o’clock
for their reports which I would then place on the
wire.

The congress opened next morning at 8 o’clock
and pursued its weary way till 10 p.m. Day after
day the maddening (to me) flow of oratory went
on from early morn till late at night, and the only
words I comprehended were : “ Myheer Voor-
zitter, Myheer Secretaris en Heeren.” Finding

74 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

that I could not improve my mind or benefit my
newspaper by a regular attendance at the meet-
ings, I sought distraction in the open air. My
days were mostly spent in driving with the
farmers’ daughters to be shown the sights of the
district. I had crowded hours of glorious life,
but found time to cast a thought of pity to my
colleagues bound by the spell of those inter-
minable droning voices in the heated atmosphere
of the congress chamber. But death itself was
not more certain than my appearance in the con-
gress at four o’clock. I stood behind one of my
Hollander friends’ chairs, silently received a batch
of “ copy ” (technically known as a “ slab ”) and
then made a bee-line for the telegraph office.

Merrily the joyous days (for me) sped until a
fortnight had been consumed by the only remedy
South Africans know for their country’s ills —
talk. The graver the ills the more the talk.
There were signs of the assembly breaking up
and I knew that my glorious holiday was drawing
to an end. The closing of the congress was
celebrated by a Bond banquet, to which I was
invited. I dreaded this ordeal, chiefly because
of my abhorred ignorance of the Dutch tongue.
I had a presentiment that I would be called upon
to reply to a toast and I approached the feast
with no appetite. When I glanced round the
crowded hall and saw the gallery filled with

REPORTING RECOLLECTIONS

ladies, I had a desire to malinger and get carried
out on a stretcher. But an Irishman is not
generally lacking in resourcefulness. I had the
inspiration to extract an oath from the Dutch
reporters present that one of their number would
respond to the formal but inevitable toast of
“ The Press.” This done, I returned to my
mutton in a calmer frame of mind.

This equanimity was maintained when, at
the close of a lengthy ordeal of oratory, the chair-
man (Mr. C. Botha) proposed “ The Press,”
and dwelt on its powers and its possibilities. I
kept a watchful eye on my Dutch confreres. I
was saved. One of them rose solemnly and
responded with what I took to be a sermon of
the usual length. Better still, every one of the
Dutch reporters got up and responded. “ Surely,”
thought I, “ that will satisfy them.” Vain hope.
My own cursed personal popularity, and the justly
earned reputation of the journal I represented,
caused a thunderous call for “ Argus ! Argus ! ”
to split my ears. I trembled, but I had to rise.
Beside me was an empty tumbler. I filled it
to the brim with champagne and drained it to
the dregs. After a brief pause to impress my
audience, and to let the champagne get into
working order, I plunged headlong into a sea of
words.

76 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

To this day I do not know what I said, but
the tumultuous “ Hoor ! Hoor ! ” which ascended
at intervals from all sides lured me on my desper-
ate way. I think it was a reference I made to
Rhodes having donated £10,000 to the Irish
Home Rule party that put the climax on the
enthusiasm. There were volleys of cheers and a
tempest of handkerchiefs in the gallery. I sat
down dazed and as parched as a lime-kiln, and
have never more enjoyed a drink than the long
one which was pressed upon me then. Next
morning when I went to settle my hotel bill the
Boniface smiled and said : “ There is nothing to
pay. You tickled them so finely last night that
the Bond has made you its guest this trip.”
Thus I completed a most enjoyable holiday of a
fortnight’s duration at a minimum of expense.
When I got back to Capetown my editor warmly
congratulated me on the excellent daily reports
I had forwarded, and sought information as to
how I had managed it. I told him the whole
story, which so pleased him that he did not
hesitate to pass an item in my expense account.
That item was “ Drinks for interpretation pur-
poses.” I kept up a friendly correspondence
with my Hollander friends for a long time after-
wards.

CHAPTER VIII

Gentlemen Adventurers

Another pleasant engagement I had was to
report an agricultural show at Ceres. I was
delighted with the beautiful surroundings, and,
though I possessed no bucolic education I greatly
admired the fine specimens of livestock and pro-
duce exhibited by these progressive Cape farmers.
When I travelled about the Cape Colony in after
years I was greatly struck by the enterprise of
the Dutch farmers, who had been pictured in my
mind’s eye as persons of the genus “ bi-jowner.”
They were really indistinguishable from cultured
English gentlemen-farmers and had nothing to
learn regarding up-to-date agricultural methods.
A long time afterwards I also became acquainted
with the backveld “ farmer,” but that is another
story, and comes later.

At the Ceres luncheon I had a seat directly
opposite that famed orator. Sir Thomas Uping-
ton, then, I believe, Attorney-General and after-
wards to become Premier of the Cape Colony.
I gazed with curiosity on the pinched face, hawk-
like eyes and drooping moustache, and wondered

78 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

how he would begin his speech. Of course, I did
not expect him to be nervous, but I was anxious
to pick up any crumbs of knowledge that might
enable me to face the public from a platform
with more sang froid than w’as the case in my
debut as a public speaker at Middelburg. Before
Sir Thomas rose to speak he took a good pull at
the tumbler, and thus I comprehended that
great minds think alike, and that there was no
difference to be detected between his preparatory
arrangements and my own. The mental chasm
separating us, however, was strikingly apparent
before he had got fairly into the stride of his
speech. It was an almost perfect day, that day
at Ceres. It was marred by one incident, which
pressmen alone wdll appreciate. The press room
was a huge marquee, the sides well looped up for
ventilation, and the tables heaped with the
reports of the judges, prize lists and all the para-
phernalia necessary to make the show a success
from the competitors’ view-point. When we
were all busy compiling our reports, a young
hurricane entered, tore down one side of the
tent, and sheafs of precious documents were sent
wildly careering over the veld in every direction.
We started in pursuit, and when we had captured
sufficient fragments of the papers to make a
literary mosaic, we set to work to reduce the
jig-saw puzzle to something like coherency.

ili-r

EARLY JOHANNESBURG

By courteous permission of “ South Africa.”
FIRvST STANDARD BANK.

By courteous permission of “ South Africa.”
FIRST OUTPUT OF GOLD.

To face page 79.

GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS

“ It was our duty, and we did.” Pressmen,
always do.

During all this time I never escaped, even
for a single day, the haunting memories of my
vanished military career. Never did I meet a
soldier in the street but a lump rose in my throat.
Imagine, then, my joy when, after about a year’s
reporting work, I met an old friend. Major Giles,
R.A., in Adderley Street. He has been seconded
from the Imperial service to take the command
of the Cape Field Artillery then stationed at
Kingwilliamstown. His conversation was like
a long drink in the desert. He painted in glowing
colours the smartness of his corps, its freedom
from Imperial red-tape trammels, and the possi-
bility of speedily attaining commissioned rank if
I joined up. In short, he eventually persuaded
me to cast in my lot with the “ C.F.A.” as he
affectionately termed the corps.

I lost no time in seeking an interview with
my patient editor, who gave his consent to my
departure more in sorrow than in anger, evi-
dently not comprehending how any sane person
could prefer a military career instead of the
more exciting one of an afternoon newspaper.
Mr. Dormer, too, was very kind, and requested
me to send him my address so that he could keep
in touch with me. I boarded the mail-boat and
disembarked again at East London, then little

80 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

more than a waste of sandhills. The years have
worked wonders there. From thence I took
train to Kingwilliamstown, where the left wing
of the Cape Mounted Riflemen was stationed,
under the command of Col. “ Freddy ” Carring-
ton. The C.F.A. was then, while actually a
separate corps, really an artillery troop of the
C.M.R., which it afterwards became “ de facto.”
That train journey was a novel experience to
me as it provided my first glimpses of the interior
of South Africa. The scenery was deadly mono-
tonous, and the rate of travelling absurdly slow.
When the engine-driver spotted a party of kafirs
on the sky-line he would pull up and take an
observation as to their direction of travel. If
they appeared to be coming his way he would
dismount from the cab for a comfortable smoke.
Meanwhile the natives grew larger as they ap-
proached the train. Perhaps one, or more, of their
number intended to join us. This possibility
led to some animated anticipation among the
passengers. But whether he added to the number
of his passengers or the natives drifted across the
track into the bush, the result was the same —
the driver, having finished his smoke, again
mounted the engine and bumped on as monoton-
ously as before. Occasionally objects of interest,
such as a kafir kraal or a native beer-drink,
aroused me from torpor. At length we lumbered

GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 81

into “ King,” and I made the acquaintance of
my new comrades.

I was not, however, to become intimately
acquainted with them at “ King,” for we were
soon under orders to move on to Umtata, in
Tembuland, which was to be the permanent
headquarters of the C.M.R. I did not much enjoy
Kingwilliamstown. I found it oppressively hot
and the surrounding bush seemed to make the
place too stuffy to breathe comfortably in.
Indeed, “ King ” bears the unenviable South
African heat record of 112 degrees in the shade.
At that time I had no knowledge of what an
important part that dull old town had played
in the numerous kafir wars, particularly the
Gaika-Galeka campaigns, which for so many
years had disastrously swept over this section of
the sub-continent. I have, however, a very
agreeable memory of a few days camping out in
the wildly picturesque Perie Bush, a wide ex-
panse of adjacent forest land, notable for some
tragic kafir war incidents and for some good buck
shooting. Later on hatching ponds for trout
were established here which supplies ova to the
various streams of the Eastern Province.

I thoroughly enjoyed the long, lazy ride from
“ King ” to Umtata, taking it easy during the
day, when the battery marched at a walk, the
men smoking and yarning, and at night, with

82 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

the guns parked, assembled round the camp fire,
when many a well-sung ditty rang through the
stillness of the veld. They were a splendid lot of
fellows, whose good qualities I did not fully
appreciate until we were established in our per-
manent quarters at Umtata. These were on a
hill overlooking the camp of the C.M.R., which
was situated in a horse-shoe formed by the bend
of the river. The township, then one, long strag-
gling street, was about a mile away. I was rather
impressed by the uniform of my new corps, which
somewhat resembled that of the 17th Lancers,
blue with white facings. The men were well
drilled under the strict eyes of Sergeant-Instruc-
tor Kenyon (now, I believe, a Captain) and of
Battery Sergt. -Major Baker. The latter had
formerly been a circus performer and was more
at home on a horse than off it. The officers were
well adapted to their men and consisted of Major
Giles, a brawny six-footer who found some diffi-
culty in securing a charger up to his weight, and
Lieutenants Heyman (afterwards Colonel and
Magistrate in Rhodesia and now a member of the
Rhodesian Legislative Council), Lodge and Whit-
taker. Lieut. Lodge afterwards, I am told, got
a good appointment in the Australian Mounted
Police, and “ Freddy ” Whittaker joined the
great majority in the Anglo-Boer war. It was
with Lieut. Heyman that I had most to do, and

GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS 8S

I found in him a good friend. The battery was as
efficient as any in the Imperial service and was
drilled as a Horse Artillery unit. Many an early
morning we cultivated an appetite for break-
fast— a useless proceeding, for in those days we
never lacked an appetite— by galloping over the
veld at full speed, cutting the “ pursuing prac-
tice,” with our cavalry swords, slicing great
chunks from the ant-hills and giving them “ the
point ” with strengthening effect on our wrist
muscles. The horses seemed to enjoy this game
as much as the men.

I found the C.M.R. to be a collection of gentle-
manly and soldier-like fellows, always ready for
any daring enterprise and animated by the
spirit of good comradeship. This body of men,
and the old Natal Police, formed semi-military
forces of which any country might well be proud.
The men themselves were sensitively proud of
the honour of their corps and its traditions. In
short, they possessed esprit de corps in its
finest form. I need only recall the names of
some of those men who were stationed at Umtata
to raise the curtain on many scenes of wild ad-
venture. It must be remembered that the C.M.R.
had at one time a depot at Canterbury, England,
where none but picked men were accepted and
that the recruiting afterwards was maintained
on the principle of obtaining the best type of

84 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

men right up to the time of the South African
Union. With the advent of the Union the type
began to deteriorate, and the formation of the
S.A.M.R. effectively wiped out the two forces I
have mentioned, though their traditions will
always live.

It is difficult to retain a roll-call in one’s
memory, but I may mention a few names at
haphazard to justify my remark about their fit-
ness for the perils of active service or the pleasures
of peace. There was Allan Wilson, who died
gloriously fighting at Shangani in 1893 ; the
three brothers Maclean, worthy scions of a fight-
ing family ; Boodle, then Sergt. Major, after-
wards Colonel in Rhodesia ; Sergt. Peakman, an
all-round athlete and good fellow, who won his
Colonelcy in the Anglo-Boer War and com-
manded the Diamond Fields Horse ; Sergt.
Crewe, at that time little dreaming of a knight-
hood and legislative honours ; Dr. Flartley, the
genial military medico, newly wearing the V.C.
which he won in Basutoland ; “ Wingy ” Scott,
who lost an arm, and won a V.C. at Morosi’s
Mountain in 1879, and afterwards became a cus-
todian of diamonds for De Beers ; Lieut. Crut-
well, with a beautiful tenor voice, and a weak
will ; Col. Carrington, with the fierce moustache,
and the stentorian voice, who, I afterwards dis-
covered, took a note of my name for promotion ;

GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS

and Lieut. “ Tim ” Lukin, who then did not
contemplate commanding a Springbok Brigade
in France, and retirement with the rank of general
officer ; the gallant Capt. Shervington, who could
hold his own with any man on the sports field or
the drill ground — when I first knew him he was
Adjutant of the C.M.R. He afterwards, with
Digby Willoughby, went to Madagascar where
they organised the Hovas against the French
forces and conducted quite a respectable guerilla
war. Poor Shervington ! He waited one day in
a dingy London hotel for a remittance ; the
delay caused him to give way to despair, and he
committed suicide while the postman was bearing
the money to him.

There is one gallant figure I have reason to
remember. It was that of Sergt. Matt Kennedy,
afterwards Regimental Sergt.-Major of the C.M.R.
and during the last Boer war a Major command-
ing an East Griqualand contingent. He had
formerly been a member of the Royal Irish Con-
stabulary and was one of a draft selected for the
C.M.R. for “ stiffening ” purposes. He was about
the first person I noticed in Umtata. He was
riding down the street, reining in a powerful
iron-grey, and I thought the pair would make
an excellent model for the Centaur. I little
thought then that one day I would marry his
daughter.

86 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

I have merely mentioned a few names to illus-
trate the stamp of men of those bygone days,
but the type could be multiplied over and over
again, and the few I have mentioned may raise
ghosts of the past to, I hope, a large number of
my readers.

CHAPTER IX

Seeing the Country

I MUST confess that after a year of it, I felt the
camp life beeome irksome. Remember, I had
been used to the striet discipline of the Imperial
serviee, and could never get quite aecustomed
to the happy-go-lueky ways of the eolonial
regime. Also I had tasted the sweets of liberty
in a newspaper offiee. So I left the corps and
again entered journalism by taking over editorial
charge of The Umtata Herald, sinee transformed
into The Territorial News. The proprietors were
Mr. Hampson, a local merchant, and Mr. William
Doran, a townsman. The former I met again
in the early days of the Rand, when luek was not
so eonstant as it had been formerly. The latter
was a quaint eharaeter, full of dry sayings and
caustie humour. One day he overslept himself,
and his wife, not getting any reply to her re-
peated calls, entered the bedroom and pulled
down the bed covering. A rhingal, a venomous
snake, had been eoiled on Doran’s ehest, and,
disturbed by the sudden withdrawal of the
blankets, fastened his fangs like a flash in Doran’s

88 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

nose. The subsequent surgical operation sadly
disfigured him, but, as he said, an ugly face is
better than a dead one.

The work on The Umtata Herald was simply
idling. Umtata was certainly a one-horse dorp,
the social life of the men generally centering in
the two hotels. The event which caused the
most intense excitement there in my time was a
fight between a Sergeant-Major of the C.M.R.
and a travelling actor named Rigby. This took
place in the timber yard annexe to Hampson’s
store, and the Thespian more than held his own.
The event caused more discussion than a Euro-
pean ultimatum. There were a number of nice,
sociable people, including Bishop Callaway, of
the Diocese of St. John’s, Mr. A. H. Sandford,
the Magistrate, afterwards Chief Magistrate of
the Transkeian Territories ; old Mr. Blakeway, a
solicitor and member of a well-known Cape
family, and, last but not least. Major H. G.
Elliot, then the Chief Magistrate. In visiting
his residence on the banks of the Umtata River,
I first made acquaintance with what I consider
to be the most delightful of South African resi-
dences, the kafir hut transformed to meet Euro-
pean requirements. The Major had three of
these inter-communicating, the interiors beauti-
fully furnished and delightfully cool and com-
fortable. Old Major Grant, of the C.M.R., had a

SEEING THE COUNTRY

similar series, but the most sumptuous residence
of this description I have come across was a
huge Bechuana hut occupied by the Hon. Maurice
Gifford (later to win his V.C.) in Khama’s country.

Major Elliot was an entrancing raconteur, for
he had seen service in the Royal Marines in the
Crimea, being present at the bombardment of
Odessa, Sevastopol and Balaclava. He was a
Canadian of soldier blood ; he came out to Natal
in 1870, and was on the Diamond Fields before
Kimberley sprang into existence. The natives
in the territories under his control regarded him
as a father, and when he retired in 1902 they
presented him with a purse of over £l,000, which
he handed over to the Umtata Hospital. He did
excellent work in the first Boer War in connection
with the native levies, which he commanded.
He was knighted in 1899, and was awarded the
C.B. in 1901. Having retired, he took up his
residence in Maritzburg, but did not live long to
enjoy his well-earned ease. Peace to his ashes,
for he was a true type of an English gentleman !

Of course, with such a large garrison of C.M.R.
and C.F.A., there was no lack of sporting events.
The troops were augmented during my stay
there by a remarkable corps, the Cape Infantry.
They were all Army Reserve men and hard cases,
but they drilled like perfect war machines. When
I was at Kingwilliamstown I often watched them

90 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

drilling with admiration ; they wheeled like a
moving wall, and their bayonet exereise was a
treat to witness. Their instruetor was an old
Guardsman, Sergt. -Major Aleek Forbes, and his
bull-voice dominated everything in its vicinity.
He afterwards became a Durban resident as
Regimental Sergt. -Major of the Durban Light
Infantry, another crack corps which, happily,
still exists. Forbes, when the Great War broke
out, forgot his age and pensioned ease, and went
to England to lick Kitchener’s recruits into shape,
and died there.

The Cape Infantry, on their arrival at Umtata,
made things so exceedingly lively that they were
put to expend their energy on road-making, at
which they performed marvels. The road cut
into the hillside at Brook’s Nek, just outside
Kokstad, is a lasting testimony to their patience
and skill. They were eventually disbanded.
Despite many attractions, the dullness of news-
paper life at Umtata soon palled on me. The
only readable “ copy ” to be obtained were the
recurring exploits of one, Golding, whose trade
was gun-running. He was constantly running
his illegal cargoes of guns across the border into
Pondoland, and as he naturally chose his own
-time, and had his own private drifts on the
river, he was never caught in flagrante delicto,
though some of his wagons were occasionally

SEEING THE COUNTRY

captured. I saw one of these hauls. It con-
sisted of a number of cases of whisky. On the
case being opened the bottoms of the bottles,
each in its straw envelope, were disclosed. But
they were merely bottoms cleverly cut off from
the bottle, while underneath were carbines,
taken to pieces and the parts packed away snugly.
The C.M.R. cursed Golding, as they had often
to sit up all night, in all sorts of weather, watching
suspected drifts. I believe the gun-runner was
eventually eaptured, disguised, on board a train
at King Williamstown, and got a long term of
imprisonment.

I left Umtata for Natal, having in my possession
a letter of introduction from Major Elliot to Mr.
Harry Escombe, of Durban. I elected to make a
holiday of my journey, travelling leisurely on
horseback, and sleeping at night at some trader’s
store, often on the counter. I enjoyed the lovely
scenery, wh’ch was all strange to my eyes, not
yet quite free from English impressions, and
had a good time, as I made my way by easy
stages, via Qumbu and Mount Frere to Kokstad,
some 130 miles. At the latter place a detach-
ment of the Cape Infantry was stationed and there
also I met Sergt.-Major “ Jock ” Webster (after-
wards Major), of the Royal Artillery, whom I
had met previously at Capetown. He was acting
as Ordnance Officer at Kokstad. He put me up

92 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

royally, and after a look around for a day or two
— Kokstad to-day is little changed from those
days — I sold my horse and took the post-cart for
Maritzburg, via Richmond.

Maritzburg in 1884 was a far livelier centre
than it is to-day. In the first place it was the
seat of Government, the Executive Council
(Natal did not receive responsible government
until 1893) and of His Excellency the Governor.
His Excellency, Sir Henry Bulwer, was a familiar
figure in the City streets, pottering about on a
quiet old horse and conspicuous by his white
top-hat. The Chief Justice, Sir Henry Connor,
who was beloved by all who knew him, was the
chief member of the Council, and, strangely
enough, he was succeeded in the Chief Justiceship
by another brilliant Irishman, Mr. (afterwards Sir)
Michael Gallwey, then Attorney-General. Colonel
A. H. Hime (afterwards Sir Albert and Premier)
was Colonial Engineer, and the Colonial Secretary
was Mr. Seymour Haden, assisted by Mr. C. J.
Bird. Mr. Haden was a memorable personage
whose vapid face and glittering eye-glass masked
a keen and witty brain. The notable Shepstone
family were represented by the eminent John
Shepstone, the great authority on Zulu customs
and traditions ; Henrique, formerly Secretary to
the Governor, and Arthur Jesse, then qualifying
for the Umfolosi magistracy, which afterwards

SEEING THE COUNTRY

led to his appointment as Permanent Secretary
for Native Affairs. Then there was a well-known
practising lawyer who was later to become Chief
Justice as Sir Henry Bale, a notable figure in
Maritzburg, as also was Sir Henry Binns, though
essentially a Durban citizen.

There was a large garrison in Maritzburg in
those days, artillery, cavalry and infantry, with
an “ overflow camp ” at Pinetown. These pro-
vided ample material for social festivities and
mounted orderlies clattered through the streets all
day long, not always on official errands, while
the streets themselves were constantly blocked
with the great traffic of loaded ox- wagons. This
period was not so long after the Zulu War, which
had brought much wealth into Maritzburg. Cer-
tainly the trade done in those days was much
larger than at any later period in my recollection,
and the cartage contractor, Mr. Piccione, had his
hands constantly full.

The Natal Police were quartered in a dilapi-
dated set of shanties in Church Street, with Major
Dartnell in command, Capt. Stein as Adjutant
and Sergt.-Major Shackleton, of the 6th Dragoons,
to boss things up generally. They later occupied a
fine barracks, now in possession of the S.A.M.R.

Among the officers of the 6th Inniskilling
Dragoons were some who afterwar became
well-known in South Africa and some that became

94 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

world-famous. There was, for instanee, Edmund
Allenby (now Lord Allenby, of Palestine fame),
who took part in the Bechuanaland Expedition
of 1884, and there was Raleigh Grey (now Col.
Raleigh Grey, of the Rhodesian Legislative
Couneil) who had his share in the notorious Jame-
son Raid of 1896. Douglas Haig, joined my oK
friends the 7th Hussars, the following year.

One amusing incident of a later date connected
with the Dragoons I recollect. The Times of Natal
had published something derogatory to the
regiment and three of the officers determined to
take revenge. Armed with the necessary para-
phernalia for the operation of tarring and feather-
ing, they called at the residence of the proprietor,
Mr. William Watson. The door was opened by
the ladies of the family, three in number. They
immediately scented mischief, and calling up
their reserves of fire-shovels and pokers, com-
pelled the invaders to beat an ignominous retreat.
The affair was hushed up but the officers were
transferred to other scenes of activity.

The Bechuanaland expedition referred to in
connection with Lord Allenby, was caused by
filibustering Boers, who had established the so-
called republics of Stellaland and Goschen in the
localities of the present Vryburg and Mafeking.
They seized stock and annexed lands belonging
to the Chief Montsioa, an act which was

SEEING THE COUNTRY

sanctioned by a proclamation of the Transvaal
Republic. Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of
the Cape and High Commissioner, issued an
ultmatum in October, 1884. An armed force was
placed under the command of Sir Charles Warren,
consisting of Methuen’s Horse, Gough’s Horse
and Carrington’s Horse. All these officers were
leaders in the Anglo-Boer War ; Lord Methuen
was Governor of Natal in 1909, and Col. Gough
(afterwards Major-General) was a son of the
famous General Sir John Gough, and had seen
service in Afghanistan and Egypt. Col. Carring-
ton also attained the rank of Major-General.
After a great deal of tall talk on the part of the
Boers, the expedition advanced. The Boers re-
treated, and finally fled over the border, without
a shot being fired. The Transvaal rescinded the
annexation proclamation, and Bechuanaland was
declared a British Protectorate in 1885.

It was on this Maritzburg visit that I first
met Mr. Pete Davis, proprietor of The Natal
Witness, a gentleman with whom I was eventually
to be closely connected in newspaper work for a
long period of years. I was introduced by the
then Editor of The Witness, Mr. F. R. Statham.
I had heard rather disquieting reports of Mr.
Davis’ brusqueness of manner, but found him
most cordial— indeed, during my long association
with him later on we always worked smoothly

96 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

together. He was undoubtedly a keen business
man and judge of character, but liable to be
“ cranky ” in his ways, unless one knew those
ways, when everything was smooth sailing. He
had many irons in the fire, was responsible for
several newspapers, was interested in the share
market, and built up a fine business. His greatest
fault was Britain’s greatest virtue, he bought
in the cheapest markets — especially journalists.
Statham I was to meet afterwards in Kimberley,
where he started a paper called The Independent,
ostensibly out to fight De Beers, an effort similar
to Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills. I assisted,
on The Diamond Fields Advertiser, to prick
Statham’s Socialistic bubbles, and as he took his
Socialism seriously, every attack on him was
riposted by a heavy counter-attack. He was a
facile versifier and a sound musician, but got into
bad odour prior to the Anglo-Boer War through
advocating the claims of the two Dutch
Republics.

By courteous perynission of “ South Africa.”
AIR. INGRAM’S PICTURE OF BACK BEACH, DURBAN, DONG AGO

By courteous permission of “ South Africa."
SIEGE OF DURBAN, 1842.

To face page 97.

CHAPTER X

Durban and Delagoa

I TRAVELLED by train to Durban, and in those
days the journey always provided one terrifying
experience. That was the crossing of the Inchanga
bridge, a wooden-trestle affair spanning a very
deep gorge. When the train approached the
bridge it would slow down and then crawl across
at a snail’s pace, the gigantic framework quiver-
ing and swaying under the pressure. To look
out of the carriage window into the depths below,
where the tree-tops appeared like a parsley bed,
was a nerve-trying ordeal, especially for women.
However, a deviation shortly afterwards did
away with this terror and the traveller now whirls
over solid earth instead of over an airy cobweb.

And so to Durban. After all these years
Durban itself has not much changed. The Point
Road and Ombilo Road are much the same as
in those far back days, though no twanging
tram-cars rumbled down them. The only trams
I remember were horse vehicles, with no upper
deck and open at the sides to the wind and dust.
Their goal was the Berea, an extra horse being

98 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

inspanned at the foot of the incline to accelerate
the ascent. There was no ornamented beach, no
impressive esplanade, nor were the stores in
West Street on a palatial scale. Despite the
great transformation which has converted the
tumbled sand dunes of the beach into an imposing
parade of big hotels, Durban’s most progressive
achievement is her fine harbour. In those old
days the bar at the mouth of the lagoon was
generally impassable. Steamers had to lie out
in the roadstead, the passengers being tran-
shipped in baskets to tugs or lighters. I once
crossed the bar battened down in the interior
of a lighter, and hope I may never have another
experience of the kind. Hanging on to iron
supports riveted into the sides, one sometimes
attained a horizontal position, while at other
times the sides became the roof, as the unwieldy
vessel plunged, rolled and tossed like a ball in a
fountain jet. The basket experience was a de-
cidedly unpleasant one, especially to ladies.

Before touching on the great changes in the
harbour I may be pardoned for directing atten-
tion to the vast improvement in the ocean
passenger steamship service since those days of
which I am writing. The Union Steam Ship
Company — a title changed in 1857 from the
Union Steam Collier Company— had the monopoly
from the Home Government of a monthly mail

DURBAN AND DELAGOA

contract until 1881, when the contract was divided
with Mr. Donald Currie’s vessels, the Castle Mail
Packet Company, which came into the Cape trade
m that year, his pioneer boats being respectively
the Iceland, the Gothland and the Penguin. In
1900 the two lines amalgamated under the title of
the Union-Castle Line. It is worth while re-
calling, for old times’ sake, the names of some of
the old boats, such as the Mexican, the Roslin
Castle, the Tartar, the Norham Castle, the Athen-
ian, the Hawarden Castle, the Trojan, the ill-
fated Drummond Castle, the Spartan, etc., all
averaging between 3,000 and 4,000 tons.

The Durban Harbour Works, which makes
Port Natal the premier haven of the Union, are
due to the splendid enthusiasm and unflagging
energy of Mr. Harry Escombe, the engineering
skill of Mr. C. W. Methven (Engineer-in-Chief
of the Natal Harbour Works) and the professional
advice of Sir Charles Hartley and Sir John Wolfe
Barry, the eminent marine engineers.

I called at the office of the Natal Mercury and
made friends with R. Cawthra Woodhead, then
sub-editor, a friendship that lasted for many
years until his untimely death. Mr. E. P. Mathers
was then editor, afterwards taking a similar post
on The Natal Advertiser, and proceeding to Eng-
land in 1888 to found the London weekly entitled
South Africa. The Mercury was then under the

100 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

joint proprietorship of Sir John Robinson and
Mr. Richard Vause. The former I did not see
during this visit, but “ Dicky ” Vause well sup-
ported his reputation as a good fellow. He was
five times Mayor of Durban and opened the new
Town Hall (now the General Post Office) in
October 1885. Mr. Escombe received me most
cordially, and I have never been more powerfully
impressed by any personality than his. He was a
familiar figure in Durban streets as he marched
strong and masterful, his hair blowing in the
breeze and jets of smoke from his pipe trailing
behind him. He and Sir John Robinson were the
two greatest Natalians of their time, and they
have had no successors. Sir John’s leading
articles in the Mercury were models of literary
style, and his political speeches were models of
oratory, though erring perhaps on the side of
stateliness. He was the father of responsible
government in Natal, and the first Prime Minister
thereunder. It has been well said by the late
R. D. Clark, M.A., of Robinson and Escombe
that “ they were lovely and pleasant in their
lives, and in their deaths were not long divided.”
Escombe was to me the perfect Man, a nature’s
gentleman. I had a few opportunities of con-
versations with him in his beautiful well-stocked
library at his residence in Beach Grove and in his
private office in town. He was a splendidly

By courteous permission of “ South Africa.”
WEST STREET. DURBAN, IN THE ’SEVENTIES.

By courteous permission of “ South Africa.”
FIRST ENGINE IN SOUTH AFRICA AT DURBAN.

To face page 101.

DURBAN AND DELAGOA

101

educated man, though he left St. Paul’s School
in the Homeland at 18. Nobody could be long
in his company without being strengthened by
the mental perhaps spiritual, contact.

Another Durban recollection that remains
with me is that of Father Sabon, a gentle, hard-
working Catholic priest, who, with that lovable
prelate. Bishop Jolivet, received the Empress
Eugenie, when she made her sorrowful pilgrimage
to the spot where her son was killed in Zululand.
Bishop Jolivet, though apparently a frail, delicate
man, was constantly making tremendous journeys
in that most nerve-shattering of conveyances,
the post-cart, for his diocese extended from Dur-
ban right down to the Kei River in the Cape. He
was well-known along that route and had the
reputation of thoroughly enjoying a good joke,
and of perpetrating jokes himself at his numerous
halting places. Those were busy days in Durban
and an indication of the state of trade could
always be seen in the crowded marts of Acutt
and Beningfield — Robert Acutt, who could tell
a good story and prided himself on his likeness
to Sir Francis Burnand, and Reuben Beningfield,
the big game hunter, old G. Cato, of Cato’s Creek ;
J. F. E. Barnes, the Borough Engineer, afterwards
Colonial Engineer, while other familiar faces
were Benjamin Greenacre, father of the present
Senator ; David Hunter, General Manager o

102 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

the Natal Government Railways, and M. W.
Carr, Engineer in-Chief of the N.G.R., with both
of whom I had long and interesting chats ;
Robert Jamieson, a municipal enthusiast and
the most kindly and gentle of propagandists ;
most of whom have passed to the Great Beyond.

I think it was in 1887 that I agreed to take
up a confidential appointment on the staff of Sir
Thomas Tancred, the Chief Engineer of the new
railway being commenced at Delagoa, which had
been offered me through the kindness of Mr.
Escombe. I had been doing well at literary work
and had made quite a connection as a free-lance
in descriptive writing and short story work.
But I wanted to see as much of South Africa as
possible, principally with the idea of picking
up experience and “ local colour.” I was to pick
up sufficient colour to make the map of South
Africa much more flamboyant than the carto-
graphers had made it.

Lourenco Marques in the early eighties was a
good place to die in and a devilish bad one to live
in. The modern town which has sprung up from
that fever-haunted site has no recollection in its
Little Paris style, of the bad days of its youth,
and that is just as well. Picture to yourself one
long straggling street having a plaza in its centre,
with occasional shops on either hand, many of
the houses being centuries old, the drinking dens

By courteous permission of " South Africa.”

DURBAN TOWN HALL TO-DAY.

DURBAN AND DELAGOA

103

open all day and night so that it was no un-
common occurrence to stumble over the body of a
drunken white man, or native woman, in the
dark. These latter were pitiable outcasts. Pur-
chased from the headman of an adjacent kafir
tribe, the headman making a practice of coming
three months in advance to book orders ; a
native woman became the open and acknow-
ledged mistress of some white man — by no means
a “ low white ” if one judged from external ap-
pearances— and lived openly with him until he
kicked her out into the road or sailed away leaving
her lamenting on the beach. They dared not
return to their tribes as their sale had cut all
tribal connection, and they wandered about the
town, vicious vagrants who could always get
enough of the red-ink-like “ vino tinto ” to
cause stuporous sleep, for one could hardly credit
these brutalised women with having dreams
which they wished to cherish. One of my most
vivid impressions of Lourenco Marques was the
number of these native waifs about the town,
generally smoking a clay pipe.

The chief store was that of McIntosh, Findlay
& Co., a Durban firm, but as all the streets were
knee-deep in sand there was no vehicular traffic.
All goods arriving aboard ship had to be carried
along on bamboo poles, on the natives’ shoulders,
a formidable job where heavy merchandise was

104 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

concerned. The police force was the most un-
mitigated gang of ruffians imaginable. They
were recruited from the West Coast convict
stations, and were sent to Delagoa much as the
convicts of Van Dieman’s Land were sent to
serve the settlers. Their ugly black faces were
thrown into high relief by an ill-fitting suit of
white canvas, and they carried an old-fashioned
brass-handled naval cutlass to keep the peace.
Their chief occupation was to levy blackmail.
On dark nights they would set upon some inno-
cent person suspected of being flush of cash, and
if he did not pay a sufficient ransom he was haled
to the calaboose, there to lay until he answered
some trumped-up charge the following day, or
perhaps that day week, for the Portuguese officials
were never in a hurry. Laisser faire was their
motto, and a “ laisser ” lot of officials it would
be difficult to find.

I had a rough experience of the tactics of these
nigger police. Returning late one dark night
to my quarters— I was then staying at the house
of Philip Knee, the General Manager of the rail-
way— while crossing the open square I was sud-
denly surrounded by half-a-dozen of these black
beauties. I could not hear them approaching, as
they were innocent of boots, and the wind was
blowing from me. They gripped my arms and
jabbered away twenty to the dozen, but I did not

DURBAN AND DELAGOA

105

comprehend a word, though I certainly guessed
their intentions. Finding me obdurate to their
eloquence they began an expressive pantomime,
turning out their pockets and holding out the
palms of their hands most suggestively. This
also failing to move me mentally they started to
move me bodily, dragging me along across the
square in the direction of the lock-up. I went
quietly for about a hundred yards, and then
suddenly threw out both fists and both legs,
and succeeded in shaking off those who held me.
Then there was a scuffle of considerable activity,
and I managed to break away from my captors,
but not before I received a nasty cut on the chin
from a cutlass, the scar from which I carried for
many years. I stood not upon the order of my
going but “ got ” with alacrity ; the chase,
however, died away as I approached my dwelling.
Next morning I suggested to Mr. Knee the pro-
priety of lodging a complaint. When he told me
that the investigation would probably linger into
months, I abandoned the idea.

There was a certain vigorous lady, I will call
her Joanna, who kept a cafe, and on certain occa-
sions, when her mood was that way, she made
no bones of telling the Portuguese officials or
officers the state of her mind regarding them.
Their only response was to walk away, with a
dignified air, to the lock-up and to give orders

106 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

that a room be at once prepared for the reception
of Joanna. How many cartloads of milreis
(valued at a little over four shillings the thou-
sand) the good woman paid in the course of her
Delagoa career to avoid incarceration is beyond
computation.

CHAPTER XI

Delagoa Doings

When I had been in Delagoa a month or two,
owing to the increase of the white population
due to the railway works, a number of European
troops were sent all the way from Lisbon to act
as police. These unfortunate men were objects
of pity. Clad in the heavy cloth uniforms of their
homeland they seemed to act as focci for the
fiercest sun rays of that sweltering climate, while
at night they did not cool off, being shrouded in
heavy broadcloth cavalry cloaks Yet they
swaggered about with affected nonchalance, smok-
ing the inevitable cigarette, while the perspiration
visibly dripped from them.

I need not go into the details of the working
and origin of the liourenco Marques and Trans-
vaal Railway Company, save to say that it had a
concession to build a railway from Delagoa to
Komati Poort, on the Transvaal frontier. The
concession was granted by the Portuguese to
Col. McMurdo, an American, who later formed
the construction company. When the line was
completed it was confiscated by the Portuguese

107

108 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

authorities. This section now forms portion of
the heavily-traversed line from Pretoria to Lour-
enco Marques.

When work was eventually started a very
nondescript crowd of workers assembled under
the aegis of the sub-contractors. So nondescript
were they that the sub-contractors never moved
about without the companionship of a revolver.
There was a big collection of decent fellows, the
clerical staff, engineers’ staff, accountants, etc.,
who were drawn from all quarters of the globe,
but mostly from England, with a good sprinkling
of South Africans. The Engineer-in-Charge was
Sir Thomas Tancred (of Tancred and Pauling,
Bishopsgate Street Within) a scion of one of the
oldest of the English Baronetcies and the most
unassuming of men. It was no uncommon sight
to behold Sir Thomas, grease-pot in hand, set
forth to lubricate the railway points to facilitate
the smoother working of the construction trains.

Our dwellings were handy American huts,
which were imported in numbered part, each
part fitting with hooks and eyes, with collapsible
shelves and bunks, and could be put together
in an hour or two. The furnishings were accord-
ing to each man’s taste, but never went very far
beyond the ascetic. When the men congregated
at first there was a good show of respectable
wearing apparel, but the absence of ladies caused

piiMj ij i'uyii,.. j“i

■j-

■%y

' '!

.nVr-'if.

luk:

rt.

/iv courteous perniissioti ot “ South Africa.”
HARVKY GREENACRK’S IX THE EARLY DAYS OF DURBAN.

Dv courteous permission of " South Africa.”
FIRST TWO-STOREY HOUSE IN DURBAN.

To face jia;)e 109.

DELAGOA DOINGS

109

a laxness in that respect and the great majority
soon wore “ any old thing,” and some did not
even draw the line at pyjamas. A light shirt,
duck trousers, and pith helmet, formed a good
working outfit. When the malaria raged amongst
us, and I shall have something to say about that
experience a little later, funerals occurred once or
twice a week, and we all turned out to honour
the obsequies in respectable black clothing,
which, through the effect of the brilliant sunlight,
conveyed the impression of making black pits
in the yellow sand of the streets. But when the
funerals became a daily occurrence, and then
became several daily, the sombre garments were
discarded and loose and easy dress worn. I may
say that the variegated costumes did nothing to
abate the solemnity of the proceedings.

There was one picturesque crowd a little dis-
tance up the line with whose antics I must ask
the reader to bear for some time, and I hope he
(or she) will find them as interesting in cold type
as I found them in virile life. I purpose to relate
a few of their escapades, not chronologically but
just as they recur to my memory. They were a
hardy set of ruffians, fit for anything from robbing
a church to manslaughter without provocation.
The news of the starting of railway construction
had caused them to drift into Delagoa, from all
quarters, but mostly from Barberton, which

110 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

about this time was enjoying its palmiest gold-
mining days. A large proportion were army
deserters from the time of the first Boer war,
many were malefactors escaped from gaol, many
more were “ wanted ” by the police and the
remainder were just wastrels. But, taken as a
whole they were a roystering lot when not at
work, not at all ungenerous and capable workers
when “ on the job.” They were engaged by
one sub-contractor who knew how to manage
them, whether by fear or cajolery I never learnt.
They were known as the Irish Brigade from the
large proportion of Erse blood among them.

They were paid weekly and came into town
on the night of pay-day, and woe befall anyone
who interfered with their diversions. For offence
and defence purposes each man carried a handy
pick-shaft, a weapon which was principally
devoted to assaults on the black police. Two of
those West Coast beauties were found dead in
the street with fractured skulls, and the popular
verdict was that they departed after a visitation
by the Irish Brigade. Whenever they vacated
their camp up the line it was with a determination
to lay in as much stock against future thirst as
the limits of their pay would allow. As a pre-
liminary measure they marched into the various
stores and purchased unnecessary articles in
order to secure more tangible change for the

DELAGOA DOINGS

111

flimsy notes in which they were paid. The notes
did not represent a very large sum being milreis,
but their face value indicated millions and gave
their owners a temporary sense of unlimited
affluence.

On these occasions they patronised the Hotel
Allemande, — a big building then unfinished but
possessing a practical bar. The landlord, Berg,
knew his customers, and when they trooped in it
was his habit to herd them into a large empty
room, pass in a certain allowance of bottled beer
and spirits, by the case, and then lock them in to
enjoy themselves undisturbed. To a connoisseur
of noise who might happen to be listening, the
sounds ranged from conversation to vocal har-
mony, thence to argument leading up to angry
vociferation, rising in pandemonic crescendo and
dying down to the snore of the bibulous somno-
lent. But occasionally they wetted their whistles
at other cafes before coming to anchor at Berg’s.

One evening, at the Cafe Blanc, an impressive
conversation was being carried on between Mon-
sieur Laure, the cafe manager, and Mr. Fordyce,
one of the railway engineers. To them entered
Muldeen, that solid man, who posed as leader
of the Brigade. He sat apart at a marble-topped
table, sipping his absinthe meditatively and
undisguisedly listening to the conversation of
the two gesticulating gentlemen in his vicinity.

112 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

“ I want it to be the best spread ever you pro-
vided, Laure,” prodded Fordyce. “ It is a great
occasion this opening of the last bridge on the
Delagoa-Komati line, and you must excel your-
self as caterer. Two ladies are coming up specially
from Durban to perform the opening ceremony.
There must be champagne without stint, cold
chicken, pate-de-fois gras— everything, in short,
that your artistic mind can conceive, for the
Chief has said, ‘ Let no expense be spared.’ See
that all the hampers leave by the ten o’clock con-
struction train to-morrow, for we at the Moveni
Bridge will be anxiously awaiting them.”

The Frenchman swore by the remnant of all his
gods that the thing would be done to the credit
of himself and to the honour of France. Then
Mr. Muldoon, rallied his scattered forces and
bore down on Berg’s.

The next day Sir Thomas Tancred, the Engi-
ener-in-Chief, started for Moveni by an early
train in order to see personally that no hitch
should occurr to mar this long-contemplated
ceremony. A crowd of his engineering staff
accompanied him, and two specially imported
English ladies were of the party, dispelling for a
time the parched dreariness of the bachelor souls
of the men. Just before the train started M.
Laure put a hogshead of beer aboard as a guar-
antee of the good things for lunch which were

DELAGOA DOINGS

113

to be sent on by a later train. About half the
journey had been accomplished when the train
reached Kilo 369. Sir Thomas observed the
Irish Brigade working at a cutting in a manner
suggestive of extreme lassitude. He harangued
the navvies from his vantage ground on the truck
containing the beer.

“ My lads,” he said, “ this won’t do. That is
not the true navvy stroke. I will wait here for
ten minutes, and if you have finished this bit of
cutting by that time you can have this hogshead
of beer which stands beside me.”

“ Begorra ! We’ll have it now, and that’s our
style ! ” yelled the Brigade. And they did. The
train was boarded amidst the stifled shrieks of
the ladies and the futile resistance of Sir Thomas’
staff ; the great cask was removed and its head
promptly staved in ; and the liquor was being
baled out within five minutes of the Chief’s
address. Having taken the raw edge off their
thirst, the navvies set to work with a will ; picks
and shovels flew, and the cutting was finished well
within the suggested time. The Chief laughed,
and proceeded on his journey.

The ceremony of opening the new bridge was
performed without the aid of champagne or
other ardent stimulants, for the commissariat
train was unaccountably late. Consequently the
speeches were as dry as temperance addresses ;

114 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

the ladies grew sleepy under the scorching sun ;
and the men, carefully nursing their thirsts,
kept an eager look-out for the expected train.
The feeling became general that the function was
not a success.

At last the laggard locomotive steamed up,
the driver, conductor and guard all wearing a
guilty and dejected look. To the unanimous
demand for the immediate unpacking of the
materials for the feast the train officials failed to
respond.

“ Please, sir, there ain’t no lunch,” explained
the guard, in his most propitiatory manner.
“ Them beasts of Hirish they boarded the train
at Kilo 370, an’ they took off all the hampers.
They said they were drinking your honour’s health
an’ hoped as how Sir Thomas would open a
bridge every day. They knocked the necks off
the champagne bottles and gnawed the chicken
like savages.”

That was the last straw. The Chief rushed
to the telegraph instrument and called up the
Potentate of Police at Lourenco Marques, de-
manding the wholesale arrest of the Irish Brigade
forthwith. The Portuguese official answered with
the shibboleth of his race. “ To-morrow.”

CHAPTER XII

Capturing a Gunboat

I MUST spare space for the crowning achievement
of the Brigade. One tropical evening Muldoon
lay in his tattered patrol tent beside the railway
embankment sheltering his camp, which was
stationed in the sweep of the bay well away from
the town. He was swelling with exultation at
the brilliancy of an idea which wit and whisky
had evolved in his fertile brain. The Brigade
had been having a really temperate time of late ;
pay was good and punctual and work but trifling
and optional, owing to the rains. So the leader
of these navvy desperadoes began to fear that his
men were rusting, and he resolved to remove that
canker from the body corporate.

Between twenty and thirty of the gang were
playing cards, and turning the air blue with argu-
ment relating to the niceties of the game. They
were seated about a camp Are on the skirts of
the bush, and had no fear of any raid on their
stakes by outsiders — so notorious was their repu-
tation that their abiding place was sacred ground
to the rest of Delagoa Bay’s population. Muldoon

115

116 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

arose, strolled over to the group, and unfolded
his brilliant idea to their admiring senses. It
was received with yells of delight, and many tin
pannikins, were oft-replenished to pour libations
to the success of the new enterprise.

On the following morning His Excellency the
Governor, the Commandant, and the Principal
Naval and Military officers held a Council of Con-
sternation at Lourenco Marques. Information
had reached His Excellency, written in eccentric
English upon beer-stained paper, as follows : —
“ The Hirish savages hup the Line will bust
your old Fort and your tin-pot gunboat to-
morrer Nite. Lock up your greasy reis and
keep away from headquarters at berg’s Hotell.

CAPT. MOONLIGHT.

Sworn interpreters having given the Portuguese
version of this mysterious document, it became
evident to the high officials assembled that some
desperate and audacious blow was about to be
struck at the authority and prestige of Portugal
in Eastern Africa. What particular form the
threatened attack was to take the combined wis-
dom of the officials could not conjecture. After
numerous cigarettes and sips of absinthe, an
acceptable plan for the discomfiture of the
“ Hirish savages ” was drawn up.

It was a matter of common knowledge that
these undesirable strangers were always locked

CAPTURING A GUNBOAT

117

up on “ wet ” nights in the billiard-room of the
Hotel Allemande by Berg, the proprietor, until
the shrinkage of the whisky cases induced them
to return to work on the following morning. It
was resolved that when Host Berg had his danger-
ous guests safely under lock and key that evening
a cordon of troops would be drawn round the
hotel, and the gang captured when they were
too sick and spirituously sorry for themselves
to show much resistance. It was hoped thus to
frustrate any mischief to Portugal which the
gang might be contemplating. To attempt to
capture them while in the mellow stages of in-
ebriety, the Colonel-Commandant pointed out
would be the folly of madness.

The Irish Brigade arrived in full force at the
Hotel Allemande in the dusk of the evening, and
were promptly shepherded into the billiard-room
with their inseparable cases of liquor. But the
great majority of them as promptly made their
exit through a prepared back window of the
billiard-room, leaving only three of their number
behind. The dauntless three remaining received
instructions to raise a painful pandemonium of
i sound as of “ bhoys ” thoroughly enjoying them-
I selves, an they carried out their instructions with
enthusiasm. A volume of shrieks and yells,
denoting fighting and festivity, continuously
assailed the ears of the outside world from the
interior of Berg’s billiard-room.

118 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

In accordance with the arrangements made at
the Council, the strongest Portuguese force avail-
able, at a reasonable interval after the police
reported the arrival of the navvies, quietly sur-
rounded the hotel. The movement of the troops
lacked celerity, for they were a hasty race in words
only. It was a mixed force, composed of all the
troops and police in garrison that could be
spared, and, in addition, every available sailor
and marine was drawn from the Portuguese gun-
boat in the bay. They were all brave men, but
had no intention of underrating the enemy.

Meanwhile three boats, laden with hilarious
navvies under the commodoreship of Muldoon,
were being pulled rapidly across the bay under
the protecting cover of night, towards the un-
suspecting and defenceless gunboat.

The environing military force patiently smoked
countless cigarettes all through the long night,
staring blankly at the hotel walls, waiting for a
lull in the interior tempest which might denote
somnolency. But the sounds continued to emerge
at irregular intervals, as if the struggles of Mara-
thon and Donnybrook were being re-enacted. |

In the grey dawn of morning, when the ex- i
haustion of intemperance was supposed to be
descending upon the besieged, the Colonel-Com-
mandant aroused Host Berg, and demanded the
unconditional surrender of all his guests.

CAPTURING A GUNBOAT

119

“ Den dousant dunter-shtorms ! ” cried Berg.
“ Dere vas only dree of dem, und dey make
noise enough vor dree dousand. Dake dem, und
velkom ! ”

A careful reconnaissance resulted in the dis-
covery that the tumultous three had also dis-
appeared through the convenient back window.

The mystified soldiers returned to their fort
and the sailors to their ship. As the latter ap-
proached the vessel, something strange in her
rig attracted their attention. The gunboat wore
an unkempt look, the flag of Portugal was hang-
ing reversed from the bowsprit stays, and divers
articles of wearing apparel were protruding from
the muzzles of the guns, from which the tompions
had been removed. On board they found a scene
of weird disorder, the wine-lockers rifled and the
remnant of the ship’s crew battened down under
hatches.

The excitement caused by this high-handed
prank of the Irish Brigade was tremendous. War
between Britain and Portugal appeared to be
inevitable — the insult to the flag could only be
washed out in blood. But diplomacy, armed
with limitless foolscap, averted a conflict. H.M.S.
Raleigh and Swift were ordered up from Simons-
town to investigate. A report was duly for-
warded to the Admiral at that station that the
navvies had taken up an impregnable position

120 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

in the luxuriant bush of the hinterland where,
owing to international etiquette, British shells
could not reach them, and where the Portuguese
troops refused to follow them. The archives
of two Foreign Offices contain the records of the
process of restoring amicable relations between
the two Governments.

Muldoon and his braves judged it expedient
to forsake for a while the toil of railway con-
struction, and turned cheerfully to the more
congenial tasks of “ sticking-up ” solitary stores
and belated travellers. In more than one in-
vidious place, Muldoon, when in his cups, related
with pride his attempt at making history.

“ An’ bedad ! ” he would boast, “ we could
have annexed the whole of the Portugee territory
that night — if it was worth the takin’. But,
bad cess to it for a bakin’, thirsty land, there’s
nobody but a Portugee cud live in it.”

Throughout the fever season we all suffered
heavily. At first we had no doctor, and had to
fight the malaria with what limited knowledge we
possessed. At that time Lourenco Marques was
surrounded by a belt of swamp forty miles broad.
If a spade turned up a foot of soil the overpower-
ing stench of decayed vegetation explained why
malaria was so prevalent. They have changed
all that now, chiefly by the judicious planting of
blue-gums in the vicinity of the town. But in

CAPTURING A GUNBOAT

121

my time the malaria was an ever-present menace,
and took a heavy toll of the Europeans engaged
on the railway construction. The total absence
of even the most elementary sanitary arrange-
ments was a staunch auxiliary of the fever fiend*
One could almost see the tropical vegetation
growing under the blazing sun. Then torrential
rains flattened out the vegetation. When the
rains ceased the sun steamed up the sodden mass
and the atmosphere was a mist of malaria.

I have said the toll we paid was heavy, and I
believe it took some hundreds during the year I
was there. The men from overseas, full-blooded
men, went first. Hence originated the saying
that a corpse lies under every sleeper of that line.
Nothing was then known of malarial infection
by mosquitoes. There were millions of those
useless insects, but the pests were not needed,
one inhaled miasma with every breath, and
swallowed it with every mouthful of food. The
most surprising thing to me was the various
after-effects of the fever. It did not seem to
affect two people alike, except in the cases of
those who died suddenly from heart failure when
apparently fully recovered from an attack. In
my own instance it took me fifteen years to shake
off the after effects, which took the form of an
ague, the attacks becoming less virulent as the
years sped by. At first there was no doctor to

122 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

attend to our cosmopolitan crowd, and in the
hotel where I stayed there were at one time
thirty delirious men with absolutely no attend-
ance. There were two deaths of delirious men
who wandered down to the beach, lay in the surf
for coolness, and were washed out in the bay and
drowned. Presently an Indian doctor arrived
from Goa, who gave much relief, but his hands
were too full to make his ministrations general-
Later a European doctor appeared on the scene.
He was a good fellow, and never spared himself
in the performance of his duties.

I had one curious experience in connection
with the malarial fever. A white ganger up the
line had dropped dead. He had carried on his
duties when he should have been filled with quin-
ine and smothered in blankets. He had the
reputation of being a decent young fellow. The
body was placed in a railway carriage — something
like a tram-car, with doors at each end — for con-
veyance to Lourenco Marques, but on arrival
the body had so swollen on the short journey that
the woodwork of the door had to be sawn away
to give it egress. I had the sorrowful task after-
wards of going through his belongings in order
to trace his relatives. His trunk was only an old
gin-case with leather hinges, and there I dis-
covered that his camp name. Barker, was not his
real one and that he was the son of a well-known

CAPTURING A GUNBOAT

123

General in the British Army. I wrote to his
people announcing his demise and later received
a sorrowful letter of thanks from them. But it
IS about his funeral I wish to write.

CHAPTER XIII

The Burying oe Barker

Barker had a solitary friend, one Featherstone.
Delagoa was at its hottest, and Featherstone was
dreadfully shaky, from three causes — recent mal-
aria, recent tippling and the recent loss of his
chum. He was accustomed to hard drinking,
callously accustomed to deaths from fever, but
not accustomed to the sudden loss of the only
man who understood his complex character. And
it was necessary to bury Barker — for that last
office Featherstone held himself responsible.

Unsteadily shuffling through the red-hot sand,
Featherstone vainly sought highly-placed officials
one after the other, but they were too enervated
to trouble themselves about the obsequies of an
unknown man. To each he explained the neces-
sity of burying Barker, but they did not see the
necessity. Retiring dejected, the desolate waster
encountered the Chief Accountant, to whom he
explained the necessity of Barker’s burial.

“ See here ! ” said that official, “ you bury
him yourself. Funerals were all very well when
we first came here. We donned the top hat and

124

THE BURYING OF BARKER

125

the customary habitments of woe — we didn’t
mind that once a week or thereabouts. But in
this season, when you have tiffin with a man at
one o’clock and find him defunct at 6 p.m., we
must waive ceremony. The deceased won’t care
how you bury him, and will rest as quietly in a
kafir blanket as in a plate-glass coffin with silver
handles. Have a drink and then do the job
yourself.”

It may be mentioned in parenthesis that the
deaths occurred so frequently at that time that
it was impossible to make coffins and blankets
had to be used for interment purposes.

The mourner assuaged his cronic craving for
the nonce, and lurched through more deep sand
to the quarters of Captain Peake, late R.N.,
Acting Consular Agent for Her Britannic Majesty
in those parts. As he entered the Consular gar-
den, the torrid sun made Featherstone’s intensely
black and gigantic shadow dance drunkenly in
front of him. Captain Peake reclined in a ham-
mock slung under the shade of palms, trying to
forget the heat and its intolerable reminder of
the life to come, with the aid of Paul de Kock,
and whisky-seltzer. To him Featherstone urged
the desirability of burying Barker.

“ Oh, you go to Hades ! ” eried the Captain,
fretfully. “ Here have I been reading the burial
serviee many times a day for the last three weeks.

126 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

until I repeat it like a parrot in my sleep, and now
you come bothering. Can’t you let a man rest ? ”

“ Hades can’t be far from here,” murmured
the wanderer, retracing his steps. “ Heat and
thirst when you’re well, worse heat and thirst
when you’re ill. Not a blessed doctor to fight
the fever ; not a blessed parson to bury a corpse
decently. Here’s the Hotel Allemande, and it’s
time for another drink.”

A large crowd of natives blocked the door of
Berg’s hotel. In their midst stood a brawny
European, with sleeves rolled above the elbows
of his hairy arms, and a chest like a ten-gun
battery. It was Tom Ross, foreman ganger of
the platelayers, and, big as he was, the natives
acted as his protective bodyguard. They accom-
panied him wherever he went, for Ross had many
practical enemies of whom he was righteously
afraid, and would not walk a dozen yards without
his unsavoury mob of guards. He invited Feather-
stone to the inevitable drink, and to him the
lonely, and somewhat inarticulate, chum em-
phasised the imperativeness of Barker’s burial.

Ross listened to the argument as attentively as
he could in the din of the fiendish tornado of
sound issuing from a room behind the bar. It
came from the Irish Brigade enjoying their
weekly saturnalia.

The stolid Berg served his customers unmoved.
“ Dey vill be dronk soon,” he commented.

THE BURYING OF BARKER 127

“ Tell you what,” said Ross, “ if Barker must
be buried, you are the proper man to bury him.
I’ll lend you half-a-dozen boys to dig a hole in
the sand. Now then ! ” he shouted, “ Who’s got
a prayer book ? ”

This unwonted request was received in amazed
silence. Presently Berg rummaged under the
counter, and produced one — deplorably battered
now, but probably once a loving gift.

“ It vas Mr. Carter’s,” he grunted. “ No use
to him now. Buried last week.”

Featherstone gulped a final gin by way of
refresher ; ear-marked the prayer book at the
burial service, and reeled into the darkening
night with the six boys Ross had lent him.

Presently, roughly stitched in an old blanket,
the body of Barker was lowered into its shallow
grave by the drunken yet reverent hands of the
navvies, who had burst the bonds imposed by
Berg. It was committed to its last resting-place
by the solemn words recited so feelingly by the
dirty, swaying, ill-clad figure of the only friend
it possessed in that East African inferno. And
the tropical moon arose from the sea horizon and
bathed the fantastic group in a cold glory.

I was on the point of embarking for England
to take up an appointment in St. Thomas Tan-
cred’s London office when I got my own dose of

128 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN A^EARS

fever. I had a long spell of it, partly in the Portu-
guese hospital and afterwards in my hotel. It
was in the latter domicile that I passed through
the worst stages of the illness. I became blind
and could tell from the doctor’s mournful voice
that there was no hope for me. But I had other
ideas on the subject. I had been living mainly
on copious draughts of tepid water, emptying as
many as three washing-ewers in twelve hours
Suddenly I experienced a remarkable craving.
I rang for the Indian waiter and put my craving
mto words. I instructed him — we used a sort of
lingua franca for our conversational purposes
—to procure for me, with the least waste of
time, a bottle of stout, to heat it in some iron
receptacle and then liven it up with plenty of
ginger. It took me some time to make him thor-
oughly grasp the process of “ mulling ” stout,
but he gathered enough of the operation for all
practical purposes. He was then to procure a
slice of cheese and toast it.

The waiter gazed upon me with horror, and
swore by his gods that such a diet would kill me
quicker than a flash of lightning. “ Go,” I
commanded, in a weak whisper, “ Go. It’s
either kill or cure. It is my last trump, and I
must play it.”

After what seemed to me about a year, my
craving getting sharper and sharper every

THE BURYING OF BARKER 129

moment, the Indian returned with the steaming
repast. I devoured every particle — and then
went to sleep for twenty-four hours. When I
awoke I found my bed-clothing saturated with
perspiration, but I was a new man. From that
day I began to mend. My blindness troubled
me, for I feared I would never recover my sight.
The hours were interminably lengthy and I could
not avail myself of the lonely man’s solace, read-
ing. But my sight gradually came back. When
I was sufficiently convalescent to move about I
was a mere bag of bones, weighing only seven
stone, had lost all my hair and was as near-
sighted as any German professor — a curiosity of
nature. The first day I ventured out on the
verandah I was brought up all standing by a
tremendous obstacle. It was a wrinkle in the
cocoanut matting. While deliberating whether I
could safely step over this, I fell over it. Thus
is mind always more potent than matter.

Sir Thomas had departed for the Homeland
during my illness, probably thinking he had
seen the last of me. But I lived to read of his
own sudden passing away on a seat in Hyde
Park many years afterwards. I had written to
Mr. Dormer, the Managing Director of the Argus,
who advised me when I felt strong enough, to
travel up to Swaziland to recuperate. This suited
me admirably, first, because I expected rapidly

130 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

to regain health and strength in the higher
latitude, and, secondly, because King Umbandine
was then handing out concessions, for value
received, and it was thought that an account of
these proceedings would make good matter for
readers of The Cape Argus. The dusky potentate
little thought that he was to supply me with
“ copy,” or that his liberality in the way of con-
cessions was to cause endless trouble in the future
to numerous perplexed British officials.

Having packed the barest necessaries — and a
collection of short stories which I wished to
republish in book form — in the smallest possible
space, I found that I still had a considerable
number of packages for the journey. The package
form was indicated by the fact that my only
mode of transporting them was on the heads of
native bearers. I had picked up acquaintance
with a French man named Belliard, who was a
trader somewhere in the hinterland. He pro-
mised to arrange for native bearers and accom-
pany me as far up the Usuto River as it was
navigable, where he had to branch off on his own
route.

We started in a little steam-launch, and when
we could steam no more we took to the banks.
The river scenery was very wild, the banks
being sereened by a dense growth of tall reeds,
through which the hippopotami had forced well

THE BURYING OF BARKER 131

marked passages. The atmosphere was as steamy
as that of a Turkish bath. I could not eat the
bread and tinned corned beef with which we were
provided, and to this day my gorge rises at the
sight of a tin of bully-beef. We arrived at last
at the point of debarkation, paid off the owner
of the launch and inspected my bearers, who
were awaiting us. It was too late that day to
start trekking, so Belliard and I rolled ourselves
up in blankets outside the wall of reeds, and,
despite the attacks of clouds of mosquitoes slept
the sleep of the tired.

The following morning we made a start, in
different directions ; Belliard making tracks for
his far-away store, with his own particular
bearers, and I with my own force. I was told a
long time afterwards that Belliard was found
dead in his store a little later, another victim to
malaria. Although I was not proud of my escort
— a dozen emaciated Inhambane natives, ragged
and dirty, I plumed myself on feeling like Living-
stone on an exploring trip. I did not long feel
like that very good man, for before long I was
swearing with all the fluency which a somewhat
limited vocabulary permitted.

We came to a ford of the Usuto River which
it was necessary to cross on my way to the Lebom-
ba mountains, beyond which lay Swaziland.
The river was very wide and shallow at this ford.

132 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

but in the middle it ran almost breast high. I
formed my clothing into a compact bundle,
which I fastened on my head, holding a guard-
strap from it in my left hand, while in my right
I carried a long stick, useful in stemming the
current. My boys went over in single file,
bundles on head, with myself bringing up the
rear. When nearly across I heard a shout ahead,
saw the boys hesitate a moment, then fling their
bundles into the stream and rush for the shore.
When I arrived on the bank there was not a boy
visible ; they had dived into the bush and I never
saw any of them again. I supposed that the
leading man felt something touch his leg, and,
suspecting crocodiles, yelled, thus stampeding
the lot. Imagine my feelings in watching all my
worldly possessions floating down stream. Among
them was the collection of short stories ready for
publishing, and I never had the heart or the time
to re-write them. Perhaps the public should be
grateful for that accident.

CHAPTER XIV

In Swaziland

Well, I will not describe my journey over the
mountain and through Swaziland. I was in
light marching order, but the sun was blazing
hot, and I was not in good pedestrian form. I
walked all that day and night without seeing a
human being. There was only one memorable
incident. I had fastened a red handkerchief to
my hat to protect my neck from the sun and after
a while I noticed that some wild cattle I had
passed were following me. Then they began to
circle around me in a highly suspicious and alarm-
ing manner. I suddenly remembered the proverb
about a red rag and a bull, so removed my gaudy
handkerchief and the cattle troubled me no
more. I must have walked fully fifty miles
before I came across a kafir hut. I was dead
beaten and could go no further. The natives
were kindness itself. They gave me possession
of a spare hut with a hardened floor, killed a
fowl and roasted it, gave me some stamped
mealies and milk. I was too tired to do justice
to the food, but lay down on the mat with which

133

134 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

they provided me and slept the sleep of exhaustion
well into the following day. When I resumed my
journey they pointed out the way I should go,
and would accept nothing from me except a box
of matches ! They seemed to regard this trifling
gift as a valuable one. In those days the Amas-
wazi were a primitive people, but before I left
their country there were signs of deterioration,
drink had been smuggled in, and for the slightest
service they vociferously demanded, “ Sixpence,
sixpence ! ”

Eventually I arrived at the King’s Great Kraal
at Embekelweni. It was heavily stockaded and
just outside was a small European store or hotel
kept by a Mr. and Mrs. Thorburn. If one wanted
to see the King on business or pleasure it was
always necessary to seek the mediation of Thor-
burn. He was the King’s adviser, and although
an official adviser was later appointed, in the
person of the late Mr. “ Offy ” Shepstone, Thor-
burn never lost his influence with King Umban-
dine. In order to add pomp to the King’s dignity,
Thorburn imported a throne from England, a
sort of glorified barber’s chair, all red plush and
gilt nails, but the dusky potentate would have
none of it, preferring his accustomed seat, an old
gin-case. I lost no time in seeking out Mr. R. W.
Wright, manager of the Forbes Reef Gold Mining
Company, which, with Pigg’s Peak, formed the

IN SWAZILAND

135

mining, and the only industry of the country.
I explained my wishes to Mr. Wright as to secur-
ing information about the concession business to
which I have already referred. He agreed that I
should become, nominally, a prospector in his
employ, occupying a hut on a hillside overlooking
Embekelweni. There I could write my “ copy ”
without interruption, send it to him under cover
of night by a native runner, and it would be
forwarded by similar means down the mountains
to the post-office at Steynsdorp, just over the
border of Swaziland. This programme was faith-
fully carried out and my articles, under the head-
ing of “ Swaziland Sketches,” appeared in the
Cape Argus for six weeks. Those articles caused
consternation in the land of their origin and I
have complacently listened in Thorburn’s store
to the threats of vengeance which would over-
take the author if he was discovered.

But I was not discovered. Like Brer Rabbit,
I “ lay low and sed nuffen.” I entered thoroughly
into the life of a prospector and was soon as well
able to find “ colour ” in my prospecting pan as
any old “ fossicker.” And the open-air life made
a new man of me, gradually rebuilding all the
tissues I had wasted in Delagoa. For six months
I baked my own bread, cooked my own meals
and washed my own clothes and was all the
better man for it. Incidentally, I grew a

136 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

formidable beard. Outside my hut was a small
waterfall, some fifteen feet in height, whieh fell
into a shallow stone basin and then bounded
down a deep ravine. In the early morning I
left my hut, stepped under the waterfall and then
felt ready to begin the day. Bread and eoffee
formed my breakfast and taking my prospecting-
hammer I would wander all over the country,
getting back in the late afternoon. I would then
prepare dinner, and while it was cooking, set my
boys, I had two of them, to crush the specimens
of ore I had brought back, after which I would
carefully note the results. There were over a
dozen reefs on the Forbes Reef property and
many of the ore specimens were beautiful, some a
clear white quartz, others a deep blue, others
veined in various colours and occasionally show-
ing visible gold. The Swaziland fields were really
the outlying portions of the auriferous De Kaap
district, and the Forbes Reef people were then
beginning what turned out to be considerable
development work. Barberton, only 40 miles
distant, was then at the height of its prosperity
owing to the great success of the Moodie Block,
an inflation which began to die down at the end
of 1887. I often returned in the evening too tired
to eat the meal I had cooked but not too tired to
write up my “ copy ” for Capetown. This I
accomplished by the light of a candle stuck in a

IN SWAZILAND

137

bottle, with an upturned packing-case for writing
desk. Nobody ever interrupted me for I lived
in a solitude only broken at night by the wailing
cry of a King’s messenger, trotting along perhaps
with a letter held aloft in a cleft stick, his cry
warning the natives to keep clear of his track.

I found the new, strange life wonderfully
fascinating. I had dropped from eivilisation right
into savagery. Here, if the King fell siek, it was
no strange thing for an avenging impi to “ wipe
out ” a hut or a kraal designated by the witch-
doctors as the source of the illness. They were
thorough, these Swazi warriors, and on such an
errand did not spare even the fowls.

I was received affably by the King when I ob-
tained permission to pay him a visit. Umbandine
was a gigantie native, corpulent, and weighing
27 stones. I happened to arrive when the eon-
cessionaries were paying their half-yearly sub-
scriptions into the royal treasury. Umbandine
granted eoncessions to everyone who could pay
for them, but generally was guided by the adviee
of his European unofficial adviser. It was, there-
fore, necessary to first placate this individual
before hoping to make a deal. Coneessions were
granted for all possible eontingencies. Besides
mining grants concessions were issued for such
future blessings as posts and telegraphs— the
country then was in an absolutely wild state—

138 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

railways, hotels, shooting galleries and every con-
ceivable thing. Sometimes the King granted a
coneession for mining over a tract of ground which
he had already given to the Boers of New Scot-
land for grazing purposes. The State archives
were not always up-to-date. When the mining
men started to break up the ground the grazing
men would ride over with guns and there would
be trouble.

I crawled on hands and knees into the beehive-
like entrance of the royal hut, and, when I could
see through the smoke, found the King seated
on his gin-case facing a semi-circle of white men
squatted upon the hardened floor. Before each
man was a little pile of shining sovereigns, the
money due on their concessions, for the King
would only handle gold. Many of these men had
ridden in from Barberton and I marvelled at the
impunity with whieh they traversed the wild
country with both saddle-bags bulging with
golden coin. Behind the King in the royal
shadow, stood Umhlhla, known to us as the
Chancellor of the Exchequer because he collected
all the golden coin, nonchalantly dropping it
into a goat-skin bag. This money was afterwards
secretly conveyed to the Indimbi mountains,
in whose caves it was concealed, and the entrance
to the caves guarded day and night. This was
my first introduction to the true savage life, and

IN SWAZILAND

139

I enjoyed the experience. I was particularly
interested in the native customs and soon picked
up a working smattering of the native language.
This was easy, owing to the vowel basis, the
Swazis, like the Matabele, springing from a
common Zulu stock.

Obese people are generally good-natured, and
Umbandine was a particularly heavy man. Yet
one day in the dry season his temper was diabolic.
For long, weary days a storm had been gathering
within his soul, because the bright blue sky above
showed no trace of rain clouds. For the adipose
monarch was Chief Rain Maker for Swaziland
and the adjacent territories ; the country was
parched, the people were importuning him for
rain, and St. Swithin was deaf to his entreaties,
being probably extremely busy elsewhere.

Delegates from Gazaland, Amatongaland and
other districts, all bearing propriatory presents
of tobacco, grain and beer, had been impatiently
squatting round the King’s enclosure for days,
awaiting the fulfilment of the royal promise that a
comfortable fertilising rain would speedily be
turned on. Some there were who silently blas-
phemed, for a scepticism was spreading regarding
the King’s powers of rain-making. He had per-
formed all the customary rain-making rites,
including silent communion with the cattle in the
royal kraal, in whose hand-fed bodies the spirits

140 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

of Umbandine’s ancestors were supposed to
reside. He had been liberal in the matter of
“ smelling out,” as divers deserted kraals not far
off bore witness. The warriors, partieularly
those of the King’s bodyguard, picked men, were
feeling uncomfortable at the lack of results attend-
ing their reeent blood-lettings.

Within Thorburn’s store many whites were
gathered uneasily awaiting the development of
the royal rage. They had assembled to form a
White Committee for the purpose of regulating
the affairs of the white population of Swaziland,
checking indiscriminate shootings and other law-
less practices common to a community where no
sheriff had a bailwick. The King had told them
to govern the whites in their own way, while he
would look after the blacks, but there must be
no overlapping of spheres of influence. Legislat-
ing was new to them and they did not like the
signs of the times. There was a silence so deep
in the room that the pop of a whisky-cork could
not disturb it. Even burly Walter Carter was
unable to troll his thunderous, and only, song.

Away on a hill overlooking the King’s kraal,
a white man was busy. He was Johann Colen-
brander, afterwards a fighting Rhodesian Colonel,
who was to meet his death in the Vaal River
when merely playing at fighting. Johann was
calmly supervising a gang of boys who were

IN SWAZILAND

141

putting the finishing touches to the whitewashing
of his store-dwelling house. A comfortable,
spacious homestead it looked, its white coating
making it conspicuous for many miles around in
the brilliant sunshine. The moral atmosphere
was disquieting, but knowing the native as well,
if not better, than most men, Johann made no
sign that he expected trouble.

Umbandine arose from his box-seat in the Great
Place. Some safety-valve must be found for his
pent-up temper. Glancing at the crowd of half-
naked warriors who were squatting in a far
corner, he held up a potent finger. His action
was telepathic, for instantly a herculean induna,
wielding a long and heavy sjambok, sprang down
the rows of squatting natives, and the sjambok
descended right and left on the bare backs and
chests of the crowd. The blows rang out like
independent firing until the dispersed group had
found cover.

Umbandine felt relieved and summoned the
witch-doctors. They came— as fantastic a crew
as ever rode a nightmare, with their tiger skins,
lynx ears, tails of cats and cows, streamers of
rags fluttering over their dirt and paint, while
necklaces of rattling teeth made the grotesqueness
of their appearance terrible. They fanned their
fires, cast their spells into the hell-broth, singing
the Zulu equivalent of “ Bubble, bubble toil

142 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

and trouble ! ” They capered about like gal-
vanised scarecrows. Still the sun shone clearly,
not a cloud dimmed the fairness of the sky, and
Umbandine alone was overcast.

CHAPTER XV

In Swaziland (continued)

The chief witch-doctor formed a bold resolve.
Approaching the King, he said : “ O ruler !

The rain tarrieth and thy people bemoan the
drought. The clouds will not answer our magic.”
“ Why, the — don’t they ? ” growled the King,
in a diapason of Zulu. “ Your magic is old and
useless. I will once more try my own magic.”
“ It is the white house on the hill that frightens
away the rain,” asserted the witch-doctor, with
the confidence of the practised liar.

“ Destroy that house,” commanded Umban-
dine. The warriors, seizing shields and assegais
from the arm-racks in the Great Place, hurried
away to demolish Colenbrander’s house, with a
savage disregard of the aesthetic properties of
whitewash.

Johann saw the impi coming from afar. Calmly
he told his boys to cease the whitewashing, to
mix the red earth with the liquid in the buekets,
and then dash the darkened contents all over
the building. Vigorously his commands were
obeyed, for the kafirs well knew the danger of

143

144 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

delay, and soon the “ house beautiful ” presented
a piebald appearance. It could no longer be
called white ; it wore a depressed look, blotched
and dirt-stained on every square foot of its
exterior.

As the panting impi arrived upon the scene
their amazement at the changed appearance of
the house was diverted by a blazing flash of
lightning from a swift moving cloud that had
crept up unnoticed in the confusion ; a crackling
explosion of thunder followed and after that —
the deluge.

As the King emerged triumphant from the
stockaded walls of the Great Place the acclama-
tions of the people rent the air, subduing the
roar of the heavy rain ; “ Great is Umbandine,
the King of Rain-Makers ! ”

In the hotel a fresh case of whisky was opened,
and, ere long, the voice of Carter shook the
rafters as he bellowed his only song. The White
Committee went into session when the whisky
was in working order, and transacted affairs of
State with vivacity and some humour. The
delegates returned joyously to their distant chiefs ;
the warriors organised a colossal beer-drink ;
the witch-doctors sought drier burial places for
the deposit of their fees ; and King Umbandine
winked pleasantly as he surveyed his circle of
admiring wives.

IN SWAZILAND (continued) 145

The whites in Swaziland were a very mixed
population. The eountry at that time was a
sanetuary for all sorts of desperate charaeters
from the Transvaal, Natal, Delagoa, and espeei-
ally from Barberton. Once within the boundaries
of that Alsatia, the Great White Queen’s writ
did not run, nor, for that matter, did the writ
of the Black King. It was Umbandine’s wise
poliey to let the whites look after themselves
while he would rule over his own people in his
own way, but the two jurisdictions must on no
account clash. Hence the formation of the
White Committee. Its inception was due to a
tragic event. Bob McNab — a gaunt and hardy
Scot, who at that period enjoyed a notoriety as a
South African Rob Roy— complained to the
King that one Leveque (I am using a fictitious
name) had appropriated some of MeNab’s cattle,
and refused so relinquish the booty. The King
deelined to mix up in a white man’s quarrel, and
told McNab that they must settle the matter
between themselves. McNab returned to his
home — he had a eomfortable residence, and did a
good business in riding transport — armed himself
with a rifle, and, accompanied by a young man
named Constable, who was visiting the country
from Barberton, set off for Leveque’s shanty.
Leveque, a half-breed Frenehman, saw the two
approaehing, and promptly elosed his door. On

146 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

his arrival McNab explained, through the door,
that he had eome to enforee the restitution of
his stolen stoek, and that delay in the process
would mean trouble. Through the door Leveque
inquired, as of Young Lochinvar, whether his
visitor came in peace or war ? Bob replied that
he was ready for either emergency, but would be
peaceful if his cattle were handed over, and
would let bygones be bygones. Having ascer-
tained that the claimant was willing to shake
hands on that bargain, Leveque opened the
door a few inches and extended his hand in
amity. No sooner was McNab’s hand placed
within the outstretched palm than it was tightly
gripped. McNab was pulled close to the door,
and a revolver fired into his body.

McNab fell backwards, badly wounded, but
managed to discharge his rifle through the
treacherous door. A regular fusilade ensued
between the two men, one within and one without
the house. Constable, who was standing near
McNab, paralysed with astonishment, received a
bullet in the forehead and his quietus made.
After that there was a long pause. McNab lying
on his back, with his senses reeling, saw the door
stealthily open, Leveque creep out and make
across the veld. McNab was just able to rest his
rifle on his knee and take a pot-shot at Leveque
before becoming unconscious. The bullet crashed

IN SWAZILAND (continued)

147

through Leveque’s knee and then the veld re-
sembled the stage in the last scene of Hamlet.

The natives, who had taken cover while the
white men thus settled their differences, then
gave the alarm. Constable was buried without
any fuss, and the two antagonists were slowly
nursed back to a state of limited health. There
was a popular and jovial medico, who occasion-
ally came up from Delagoa to Swaziland, one Dr.
Summershield, for hunting, and, perhaps, con-
cessions, and he, I believe, looked after the two
wounded men as long as was necessary. Nobody
was punished for Constable’s death as there was
no law to invoke, but the necessity for forming a
sort of Vigilance Committee was apparent and
the White Committee came into being. Their
powers they granted themselves, and so great was
the respect for these mysterious qualities that
during my stay in the country nobody cared to
defy them. Mr. Wright, my friend, was chief
of the Committee and as his headquarters at
Forbes Reef were built of stone, and loop-holed
for musketry fire, they not only formed a credit-
able fortress, but a highly undesirable prison.

I had heard so many wild tales of McNab that I
regarded him with awe, but he was a mild and
inoffensive man when sober. As it was often his
custom to start the day at Thorburn’s store
with a “ royal shandy ” (a mixture of stout and

148 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

champagne) his chances of sobriety during the day
were small. He would gradually become dour,
and was then to be avoided, but he was never
known to become dangerous unless wantonly
provoked. Another desperado whom I after-
wards met had achieved fame as a horse-stealer.
He was “ Scotty Smith,” the most genial of com-
panions, with a fund of amusing and exciting
yarns. The adjacent Boers in New Scotland,
especially those who missed horses, would have
much liked to make his acquaintance, but
“ Scotty ” was shy of strangers. Another peculiar
character I met at the King’s Kraal was a facto-
tum of McNab’s named Patrick (to give yet
another fictitious name). He was in charge of
McNab’s transport wagons, and when riding
on one of those with him one day he slightly
lifted the veil on his past history. He had been a
sergeant in the Natal Mounted Police, and had to
flee the Garden Colony for some unstated cause.
He showed me an inscribed gold watch which
had been presented to him and the other members
of the mounted police when they escorted the
Empress Eugenie to the spot in Zululand where
her son, the Prince Imperial, had been killed by
the Zulus. He was a fine-looking man, of a dis-
tinctly military type, and I often wondered how
he bore his exile in those wild wastes.

IN SWAZILAND (continued)

149

It is difficult, after the lapse of so many years
to place the men I met among the Swazies, but
some of their names may still be remembered by
contemporaries such as Walter Carter, George
Hutchinson, Captain Christian, Captain Ewing,
William Pigg (of Pigg’s Peak gold mining com-
pany), Jack Boyer, Harold Wheeler, Fred Head-
ley, Andrew Meikle, Tom McLachlan, John
Martin (who was murdered by the natives). Jack
Blain, James Forbes (of Forbes Reef), — Under-
hill (who died on the Lebombo), Rathbone, Jack
Buchanan, Arthur Neuman and Texas Wilson.
Some distance from the King’s Kraal at Em-
bekelweni was a solitary store kept by Bremer
and Wallenstein, around which grew up the
present township of Bremersdorp, formerly the
seat of Government, which was transferred in
1902 to Mbabane. Wallenstein paid a visit to
Durban in 1900, went over to the Bluff and there
mysteriously disappeared, probably drowned.

It is not so difficult to place the white women.
There were only three. Mrs. Colenbrander, her
sister, Mrs. Darke, and Mrs. Thorburn. Mrs.
Colenbrander and Mrs. Darke, were members of
the group of beautiful Mullins sisters from Veru-
1am, Natal. Mrs. Colenbrander (nee Mary Mul-
lins) was a splendid shot and a daring horse-
woman. I first made her acquaintance in a
curious manner. One morning early I was

150 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

pushing my way with a long pole, which I always
carried, through the tall grass, ten feet high, and
incidentally getting soaking wet from the accu-
mulated dew, when I heard a most unusual noise
behind me. I checked my progress and turned
about to locate more clearly the sound. I made
it out to be the hoof-beats of a horse at a loping
canter. Wondering who could be riding in this
direction at such an early hour I turned to pursue
my path — and faced a cobra. It was standing
erect, apparently on the tip of its tail, its jaw
hoods distended and its tongue flickering. At
first I stood as one petrified ; then, automatically
I struck it violently aside with my stick, and I
saw the reptile disappear down a hole underneath
a big boulder.

“ Good heavens, man, what’s the matter
with you. You look as white as a sheet ! ” The
speaker was Mrs. Colenbrander, who had pulled
up her horse close behind me. I was so stunned
by the incident that I never heard her approach.
I met her afterwards, I think, in 1900, travelling
in a Scotch cart through the bush in Bechuanaland
on the way to join her husband. Colonel Johann
Colenbrander, in Rhodesia, or Charterland, as
we then termed it. She was as ideal wife for a

pioneer.

CHAPTER XVI

When the Rand Was Young

My work in Swaziland completed, I felt the
vagabond prompting again to “ move on.” I
commenced my long journey to Capetown seated
in a Scotch cart, drawn by a couple of oxen, in a
heavy downpour of rain. Going down the moun-
tain side to Steynsdorp I was glad to leave my
uncomfortable conveyance and remove the rain-
chill by walking. At Steynsdorp I got a seat in
the post-cart to Lake Chrissie. This place is
remarkable as possessing one of the very few
fresh water lakes in South Africa. When I
arrived the heavens were endeavouring to con-
vert the lake into an ocean. My clothing was so
sodden with moisture that I had to discard it,
and purchase a new outfit at the store of Simmer
and Jack, a name afterwards well known in the
gold-mining world. Thence by post-cart again
to Newcastle, train to Durban and mailboat to
Capetown. From there, acting on instructions,
I took train to Kimberley and mule-waggon from
the Diamond Fields, thus travelling almost in a
circle since I left Embekelweni.

151

152 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

Travelling by mule-wagon was a pleasant
experience in fine weather, but when it rained it
was another story. Just beyond Christiana the
ground was so soaked by constant rain that we
were bogged up to the axles, and could not ven-
ture from our cramped quarters on the wagon for
much longed-for exercise. Later, I travelled over
this same road in the American stage coaches of
the original Kimberley proprietors, Sheehan and
Frisby, and later run by Geo. Keys and Co.,
and by Zeederberg. These were the regular Wild
West coaches, now rendered familiar by the
cowboy pictures in the bioscopes. They made a
three-day journey from Kimberley, carried twelve
passengers inside and six on top. The latter
were generally strapped down at night to prevent
them rolling off in their sleep. The driver, who
always handled his team of fourteen mules with
masterly skill, generally had an old ammunition
box under his feet. This contained golden sover-
eigns, I think 2,000 was its capacity, and this
was the only method by which the up-country
banks got their cash supplies. The coach was
swung on stout leathern straps, and had leather
flaps in lieu of window panes. Consequently the
swaying motion and the clouds of dust that en-
tered by the open windows made travelling any-
thing but luxurious. When the driver had to
travel by night he would whip his team to a

EARLY JOHANNESBURG.

By couyteoiis permission of " South Africa.”
OPEN WORKING AT THE RAND.

By courteous permission of ” South Africa."

Till-: I'JRvST HOUSI').

Til face pnije l.S!.

WHEN THE RAND WAS YOUNG 153

gallop into what seemed to unpraetised eyes an
impenetrable darkness, blowing warning blasts
on his bugle, and would rattle through rocky river
beds at a nerve-shattering pace. Yet the acci-
dents to those lumbering vehicles were astonish-
ingly few.

To return to my mule- wagon. We reached
Johannesburg after what appeared to be an end-
less journey. I felt sore all over, and dog-tired,
so that the bath at Height’s Hotel, and the re-
freshing sleep that followed it put me in good
trim for the sight-seeing next day. There are
comparatively few who remember the days when
the Rand was young, and for those persons of
later date a description may prove interesting.

First, I had better sketch the more interesting
circumstances which caused this stretch of bare,
dusty veld to become one of the richest gold-
fields of the world. As far back as 1884 the
brothers Strueben made a rich gold strike on the
Witwatersrand, but it was not until 1886 that
things began to move mightily. It was in July,
1886, that Mr. J. B. Robinson (now a Baronet)
received a telegram from Kimberley, sent by a
former friend of the diamond diggings, advising
him that a valuable conglomerate had been
found some thirty miles from Pretoria, and urging
him to come up. Mr. Robinson, accompanied by
Dr. Hans Sauer, lost no time in booking seats by

154 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

the coach which travelled from Kimberley to
Barberton.

Eventually they arrived at a spot where the
banket had been exposed in a cutting made by a
Mr. Bantjes. That spot was afterwards the
Bantjes Gold Mine. The banket gave good results
to Mr. Robinson’s panning and he followed the
trail up to Langlaagte, now the site of the Lang-
laagte Estate and Gold Mining Company. Hav-
ing traced the outcrop of the reef for over thirty
miles Mr. Robinson was convinced that a pro-
position of that extent must have depth as well.
Resolving to purchase the Langlaagte property,
he first of all decided to lease it for a year, with
the right to purchase within that time for £6,000.
He next acquired a half share in the De Villiers
property (now the Robinson G.M. Co.), for £1,000.
Two months later, acting for a syndicate, he
bought the remaining half of the Robinson
property for £12,000. Dr. Sauer then returned
to Kimberley and informed Messrs. Rhodes and
Rudd of Mr. Robinson’s success. All three gentle-
men arrived on the Rand three weeks later. The
first property they acquired was the Duprez, and
Rhodes wished Robinson to amalgamate their
interests, but the latter declined on the ground
that his own property was the more valuable of
the two. A rush quickly set in and development
work became general.

By courteous permission ot “South Africa."
JOHANNESBURG TO-DAY.

Tu face page liif/.

WHEN THE RAND WAS YOUNG 155

In those early days the “ expert ” opinion was
that the gold of the Rand was not permanent.
The general belief of these men was that the reef
was the bed of an old river, tilted up, and that
the gold would pinch out at a depth between 30
and 70 feet. One of these experts, an Australian
named N. M. Howitt whom I had previously met
in Swaziland, told me that after the reef had
pinched out at a surface depth the problem would
be to strike it again at a greater depth, and, there-
fore, it could not be a paying proposition. Sir
Joseph Robinson tells with relish the tale of the
former owner of the Robinson property standing
champagne after receiving his purchase money,
and when he and his friends drank success to the
new owner they solemnly winked at each other.
Mr. Robinson’s “ Cabbage investment,” as it
was called, which originally cost him a total sum
of £26,000, stood in a few years at no less a sum
than eighteen millions sterling.

The Transvaal Government at first, did not
take the new goldfields seriously. It was not until
a deputation, comprising Robinson, Rhodes and
three others, waited upon President Kruger to
discuss the terms upon which the fields should be
thrown open, that the importance of the matter
became apparent. After much negotiation, sur-
veyors were employed, mynpachts marked out and
proper deeds registered. After the proclamation

156 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

in 1886, claims were pegged off in all directions
and the Golden City began to rise from tha
dust of the veld. The striking of the main reef
on the Langlaagte, at a depth of 450 feet, estab-
lished the value of the fields and people flocked
from all parts of South Africa to the Rand, and
an immigration of fortune-seekers from Europe
began to set in. But it was not until the dis-
covery of coal at Modderfontein that companies
were formed all over the Rand, and the erection
began of large crushing batteries, that people
began to believe that a great number of years
must elapse before the gold supply became ex-
hausted. A Government delegation laid out
the township on its present site, building stands
were in great demand, and these were allotted
under the new Gold Law. The stands measured
100 feet by 60. A Diggers’ Committee was elected,
water rights surveyed and a system of registra-
tion introduced at the Mining Commissioner’s
office. Next followed the establishment of the
Stock Exchange and the tide of speculation set
in freely.

It was a strange and vastly interesting scene,
that youthful Johannesburg, shabby and tawdry,
but growing visibly. The houses were in the
transition state from canvas, via galvanised iron,
to brick. The people all seemed to be happy in
those old days, when they did not take Pretoria

WHEN THE RAND WAS YOUNG 157

too seriously. And there was plenty of money,
for those who were not wealthy had realised all
their possessions to try their luck on the gold-
fields. It was a common sight to see the canteen
bars spread over with sovereigns, which changed
ownership under the delectable influence of that
seductive game of dice known as “ Yankee
Grab.” Commissioner Street was not then hard-
ened and had more than one mud-hole which
could swallow a Cape cart, but nobody grumbled.
There were three murders in that street on one
night, but the public was indifferent. The cur-
tain rose as merrily from the footlights of the old
Globe Theatre — on which site the first Empire
theatre of varieties was erected — as if all believed
the truth of the message of bold Denys, “ Cour-
age, the Devil is dead ! ” When the first “boom ”
was on in 1887 the spirit of gambling permeated
everybody, and as shares could be obtained on
“ time call ” — to be paid for before noon next
day — many a man without two sovereigns to
clink together bought a block of shares which he
sold at a big profit the same afternoon. If the
shares happened to slump he would probably be
missing the following day, and this tendency to
flit killed the custom of buying “ on time.” I
was induced to invest all my available capital in
“ Birthdays ’’—with disastrous results.

158 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

Gamblers with less respeetable eounters than
stocks were amazingly numerous ; everybody
gambled and the proprietors of the “ Joints ”
waxed so fat that in time they became highly
respectable citizens. There were occasional raids
on those establishments, and, though they took
no prisoners, the police departed exhibiting
every sign of satisfaction. There was an open-
handed charity which covered more sins than
gambling. Ready cash was always more plentiful
during the Kruger regime than it has been in later
days. We had no water supply, and never missed
it, though constantly plastered with red dust
from the surrounding veld. There was nothing
higher in the scale of palatial hotels for some time
than the Grand National— not the present well-
known hostelry of that name — and that satisfied
our aesthetic craving for plate-glass and gilt
mouldings, for had we not roughed it within the
canvas walls of Height’s caravansary, the first
hotel of note on the Rand. We had a farcical
police force — it was no earthly use “ asking a
policeman ” in those days — but we contrived to
live in an atmosphere of comparative peace, our
only legal dread being a claim for the very much
unpaid poll-tax. Persons of lax morality used
to lend their tax receipts to persons of a morality
still more lax when the inspectors were descried
in the offing. The Kruger Government must

WHEN THE RAND WAS YOUNG 159

have lost a great deal of money through that
source of revenue. There is no escaping taxes
now, and the Rand is correspondingly unhappy.

Those were comparatively days of journalistic
freedom of expression, especially when the editors
Wright and Brown respectively guided the tur-
bulent courses of The Standard and The Digger's
News afterwards amalgamated ; when Decker
and Holman ran The Mining Argus and Josiah
Angove The Evening News. The latter gentle-
man shifted his plant from Potchefstroom, swept
away by the gold rush, and lost much of his type
by a wagon turning turtle in the Vaal River, so
that his journal for a time presented a very
“ pi ” bald appearance. The first theatrical
company on the Rand, to the best of my recol-
lection, was brought there by Miss Ada Tremaine.
It was called a Shakesperian company, but as it
alternated Macbeth with Lady Audley's Secret, the
title was somewhat elastic. Occasionally press-
men at a loose end would stroll behind the scenes
and lend a hand at “ general utility.” I remem-
ber one night when we were employed as the
combined forces of Macbeth and Macduff, a dual
part which we played by banging on a sheet of
iron suspended from the flies with iron imple-
ments, shouting all the time ferocious “ Ha’s ”
and “ Ho’s.” We did our level best to illus-
trate Shakespeare’s idea of “ Those clamorous

160 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

harbingers of blood and death.” Later on, when
the old theatre was destroyed by fire, I nearly
lost my life while helping to get the baggage
outside, narrowly escaping the crash of a falling
wall. One of the company, the juvenile lead,
Mr. Percy Rhys, afterwards became a member
of the Rand Stock Exchange.

CHAPTER XVII

The Starting of Golden City

Whilst working on The Mining Argus we made
a “ scoop,” a rare occurrence then as all matters
affording excitement were on a monotonous dead
level. One morning our correspondent rode in
from Krugersdorp with news of so thrilling a
nature that the paper’s special edition sold like
hot cakes. The bank there had been “ held up.”
In broad daylight, it was ten o’clock, two men
rode up to the bank and hitched their horses to
the rack outside. They entered the bank, closed
the doors, covered the manager and staff with
their revolvers, and one then bound the bank
officials and locked them up in a side room. They
had placed the bags of money on the counter and
were cutting them open in order to transfer the
contents to their saddle-wallets, when they were
disturbed by a knock at the bank door. “You
can’t come in,” cried one of the robbers, “ we
are taking stock.”

The knocker was the bank messenger, who had
returned from some errand. Puzzled at finding

the door closed and at the strange voice within,

161

162 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

he went up the street, and was fortunate in find-
ing Sergeant Tossel, of the Transvaal Police,
riding down it. While the messenger was ex-
plaining the situation to the sergeant the two
robbers emerged from the bank, fastened their
wallets to the saddles — they contained some
£1,200 in gold and notes— and calmly rode away.
Tossel immediately gave chase. The two des-
peradoes (named Turpin and McKeown) were well
mounted, but to lighten their load they were
forced to throw the money right and left into the
veld, but Tossel had to change horses twice in
that mad race, the last change being a racer
in training, which he took from a roadside
stable.

Eventually the brave sergeant cornered his
< men at the foot of a kopje, their labouring horses
being unable to carry them further. Revolvers
were drawn and shots exchanged on both sides,
McKeown’s arm being broken. Tossel, taking
cover behind his horse, fired away all his cart-
ridges, then mounted and dashed at his quarry,
pointing his empty revolver, and shouting,
“ Hands up ! ” The robbers surrendered, and a
timely doctor, driving a Cape cart, appearing on
the scene, the prisoners were taken back to
Krugersdorp. At their succeeding trial they
were both sentenced to imprisonment for life and
Tossell was promoted to a lieutenancy.

THE STARTING OF GOLDEN CITY 163

The affair is chiefly impressed on my mind by
the fact that no sooner was the news circulated
in Johannesburg than numerous search parties
set out to hunt for the treasure scattered along
the road by the robbers in their flight. Strange
to say, nobody ever reported the finding of any
money.

Another curious case of that period dwells
in my memory. Next door to The Mining Argus
Office was an auctioneer’s mart, kept by one,
Gallewski. He was informed one day by the
bank, that a sum of £10,000 had been cabled to his
credit. He at first protested that there had been
some mistake, but eventually drew out the whole
amount in notes. The following day the bank
sent for him in a hurry and stated that there had
been a mistake in the cable code, and would
he please return the money. Gallewski wouldn’t,
on the ground that no notice had been taken of
his previous protest. The case came before the
High Court at Pretoria thrice, and on each occa-
sion the bank lost its case and had to pay costs.

Those early days saw the influx of that strange
race, locally known as “ Peruvians.” How they
obtained their title is not very clear. I believe it
was first given to some Polish and Russian Jews
who came out to South Africa after failing to
make a living after the failure of Baron Hinsch’s
Jewish colonisation scheme in South America.

164 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

The land must indeed be barren where they failed
to extract a living. You might notice one of
these in the first week of his arrival, woe-begone
and filthy, selling boot-laces, and three months
afterwards see him again in decent black, his
shaggy locks respectably trimmed, taking more
than a passing interest in the scrip transactions
“ between the chains.” What magic is there in
the wonderful way in which these people prosper ?
There appears to be only the magic of never-
ceasing, ever vigilant, ever-patient, self-sacrificing
industry — a wrought-iron quality.

The virtue of thrift is exercised by them until
it almost becomes a vice ; they cheesepare and
scrape until they get a few shillings together.
With these they extend their operations, atom by
atom, and then — when they have proved them-
selves to be worthy sons of their race— they are
helped, to a lesser or greater extent, by a special
fund organised by their wealthier co-religionists,
and once fairly launched in business not a sheckel
escapes their clutches. The lavish jewclleiy for
the woman and the motor-car for the man are
then within measurable distance. They prosper
exceedingly, pay back the loan to the philan-
thropic society, and ever seek fresh worlds to con-
quer. There is something of the patient watch-
fulness of the spider about them. No average
Christian is capable of the will power and

THE STARTING OF GOLDEN CITY 165

self-denial these men practise. And even if the
Christian were capable of it he would get no
society to launch him into business, but plenty to
frustrate his efforts.

Recalling these, my memory brings back the
once-familiar form of a Jewish millionaire who
rose from the humblest of beginnings, “ Barney ”
Barnato. I first met him in the old Transvaal
Hotel, Pretoria, and had a most interesting chat
with him on the stoep after luncheon. We were
twice interrupted by “ dead-beats,” who said
nothing but appealed to Barney with the mute
language of the eyes. He understood that lan-
guage and, without pausing in his talk, slipped
his fingers in his waistcoat pocket and passed a
sovereign to the appealer, who thereupon van-
ished, with mumbled words of thanks. “ I
always,” said the genial millionaire, “ carry a
stock of sovereigns in that pocket for the benefit
of stony-brokes. Consequently, I attract the
fellows.” I could believe it. He was to be met
in Commissioner Street any day in company with
all sorts and conditions of men. He would walk
down one side of the street with a financial pillar
of the Corner House, and presently could be
observed marching up the other side, arm-in-arm,
with Barney Malone, the pugilist. His chat with
myself was mainly about amateur theatricals, of
which he was a devotee, and he delighted to play

166 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

in the old Kimberley theatre, his favourite part
being that of “ Hawkshaw the Detective.” He
was very human, with a special barbed-wire wit
of his own.

He was born in humble circumstances, but of
good parentage, in Spitalfields, in 1852. His
mother was a relative of Sir George Jessel, a
one-time Master of the Rolls, and he had a Rabbi
for grandfather. He started business “ on his
own,” when quite young in Middlesex Lane, but
on attaining his twentieth year he started for the
Cape, and landed there, as he was fond of relating,
with sixpence short of ten half-crowns in his
pocket. However, South Africa was a good step-
mother to him. But at the start it was not all
roses for Mr. Barnett Isaacs — his real name. He
went up to the diamond fields to join his brother,
and there became a “ Kopje Walloper,” or
dealer in diamonds. He got together a little
capital and possessed infinite pluck and energy.
Within three years he owned five good claims.
Not long afterwards he bought out one Stewart,
the last individual claim-holder, the claims then
being bought up by far-seeing speculators, among
whom was Cecil John Rhodes. Barney set him-
self to consolidate the conflicting companies
formed to work the mines and by 1887 he was
the financial “ boss ” of Kimberley.

THE STARTING OF GOLDEN CITY 167

He then tried a “ deal ” with Rhodes. The
story is fairly well known. Barnato, Rhodes and
Beit sat up till four in the morning, diseussing how
De Beers and the Kimberley mines should be
amalgamated. Rhodes, backed by Beit, wore out
the business-like Barney. He surrendered, say-
ing, “You seem to have a fancy for an empire in
the North, and I suppose you must have it.”
Barnato sold out his interests for £5,500,000, and
was given a life interest in De Beers, so he had
nothing to complain of. Photographs of that
famous cheque can be bought in Kimberley
shops even to-day.

From diamonds Barnato turned his attention
to gold. On the Rand he acquired controlling
interests in the New Primrose, the Simmer and
Jack, the Glencairn, the Geldenhuis Deep, the
Roodepoort, and many another well-known mine.
He was also largely interested in the Johannesburg
Stock Exchange, the Water Company, the Estate
Company, and kindred undertakings. Then he
launched himself in London, started the Barnato
Bank, and people backed him blindly, and many
blamed him because their luck was not his. He
stuck to work until it killed him. There are
heaps of stories illustrating his kindness of heart.
He always gave freely, but would slang a ’bus
conductor who overcharged him while his breath
lasted. He was feeling unwell when he went

168 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

down to Southampton in December, 1896, to see
his nephew, Mr. Solly Joel, off to the Cape. He
was persuaded by his nephew, by Mr. J. B. Robin-
son and other friends to go with them as far as
Madeira for the benefit of his health. Finally he
went the whole way to the Cape with them. He
attended to his mining affairs in the Transvaal,
and in June, 1897, embarked on the mail steamer,
the Scot, for England, being then rather seriously
ill from a brain affection. His health seemed
to improve on the voyage. After lunch one day
he took a walk on deck with Mr. Solly Joel, and
seemed to be in high spirits. Suddenly he asked
the time of day, rushed to the vessel’s side and
jumped overboard. The fourth officer jumped
after him, but as the boat was travelling fast in a
heavy sea, no rescue could be effected. In time
the vessel was stopped and the body recovered,
floating head downwards.

CHAPTER XVIII

When Kruger Ruled

I RATHER liked my first visits to Pretoria, the
quaint, old-world town, with its ancient church
in the centre of the square, and for a time was
engaged on The Press, under Mr. Mackay, a
Durban man, as editor, and Mr. Leo Weinthal,
as business manager. The latter is now in Lon-
don, proprietor of The African World. There
also I had opportunities of making the acquain-
tance of Dr. Scoble, the able and fearless editor
of The Transvaal Advertiser. I also had plenty of
opportunities of seeing Oom Paul, but I had a
closer acquaintance with him afterwards at
Pietersburg, and will not readily forget the sound
of his deep, raucous voice as he addressed his
burghers from the top of an ox- wagon.

Tbe Pretoria of those days seem very far re-
moved from the administrative capital of to-day,
though I believe certain of its old characteristics
still flourish. There were no fine buildings then,
the pioneer in that line being, after the Raadzaal,
the Grand Hotel and the Palace of Justice, the
building of which began, I think, in 1895. We

169

170 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

had no prophets in those days to predict the
Union Building. The society of the place con-
sisted almost wholly of Government officials, or
those connected with the Netherlands Railway
service and tradespeople, all perpetually sharpen-
ing the “ keen sense of favours to come ” from
the Government. There were always a number
of speculators desirous of obtaining favours from
the Government. These could be obtained — at a
price big enough to secure a majority vote in the
legislature — but only through the good offices
of a middleman. To be blunt bribery was not
regarded as a crime by those old Dutch legislators.
When the Volksraad was not sitting, Pretoria
became somnolent. When it was in session the
monotony was somewhat relieved by the presence
of the honourable members, who lived in cheap
lodgings in the belief that a legislative salary of
£3 per diem must not be squandered. They
generally dressed in dingy suits of rusty black,
solemnly standing or slowly moving about, smok-
ing and expectorating, conversing stentoriously
about their farm, stock or financial operations.
Their appearance in the Volksraad was generally
marked by controversies and remarks of a per-
sonal nature, while challenges to mortal combat
were not unknown.

When the Volksraad was sitting President
Kruger always drove down to the Raadzaal

WHEN KRUGER RULED

171

about eight o’clock in the morning, accompanied
by an escort of mounted police or Staats Artillerie,
in charge of a lieutenant. In later years he ac-
quired an aggressively gilded carriage for this
purpose, but gorgeousness is not compatible
with the primitive ideas of the Boer mind, and
he disliked using it. Clothed in black, wearing
his broad sash of office and crowned by the quaint
top-hat so beloved by caricaturists, Oom Paul
was ever conservative in costume. It was said
at the time that the only thing to make him alter
it was the acquisition by Dr. Leyds (of whom the
old man was childishly jealous) of crosses and
orders from European potentates.

Dr. Leyds, the State Secretary, was in striking
contrast to his surroundings. Gentlemanly in
his appearance, of refined tastes, and with talents
of no mean order, he cordially returned the sus-
picions and hatred of the Boers from the moment
of his first contact with them. There was abso-
lutely nothing in common between the polished
doctor and the rough-hewn legislators with whom
he was compelled to come into daily contact.
This feeling was often shown by the manner in
which the Volksraad treated Leyds and he the
Volksraad. The diplomatic doctor allowed no
opportunity to pass by which his power could be
augmented, and his plausible tongue so worked
upon the President, and his ingenious schemes

172 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

were so much after the President’s own heart,
that the influence of Mynheer Sekretaris became
more firmly rooted with every additional year of
office. However, the two might quarrel in private,
in public the President’s protege was so sacred
that he could only be abused in whispers, and at a
safe distance.

On the other hand, a former Judge of the
Transvaal High Court — now Justice Sir John
Kotze, of the Cape — considered Dr. Leyds not
the able man people supposed him to be, and
Justice Kotze was in a position to observe closely
the man of whom he wrote : — “ He can write and
add two and two, and is Kruger’s secretary in
effect, and stuffs the old man with ridiculous ideas.
But put him among trained men and you will see
him collapse. He cannot, in a fair game, hold his
own with Mr. Conyngham Greene (the then
British Resident) for a moment. In a word, he is
ignorant and incredibly provincial, though, com-
pared with Mr. Kruger, he is, of course, quite a
man of the world. Nor does he influence the
President. He may egg him on, but not stage-
manage him.” As my own impressions of Leyds
were merely superficial I think it right to append
this pen-picture of a keen observer in close touch
with all officials. The storm of the Anglo-Boer
war swept this minor Mephistopheles finally back
to his native Holland.

WHEN KRUGER RULED

173

A great crony of Kruger’s, and the medium
through which outsiders approached the inner
mysteries of the Legislature, was Mr. Barend J.
Vorster, at that time familiarly known as “ Klein
Barend,” He was the incarnation of Boer artful-
ness. A Transvaaler by birth, and a backvelder
at that, he showed remarkable ability as a farmer,
speculator, and Volksraad member for Zoutpans-
berg. As a proof of his ability and energy it may
be mentioned that within a period of two years
he mastered two languages, English and German,
having at the start but an indifferent knowledge
of the former tongue and none at all of the latter.
The Executive of the Transvaal was composed of
men whose names afterwards became historical.
President Kruger ; State Secretary Leyds ; Com-
mandant-General P, J. Joubert (“ Slim Piet ”),
and the Superintendent of Natives, Commandant
P. A. Cronje, who was later to become so pro-
minent at Doornkop, where he captured Dr.
Jameson, and at Paardeberg, where he was him-
self captured. Under the chieftainship of Mr.
Justice Kotze, the Judicial Bench was the only
thoroughly incorruptible institution in the State,
One of the most conspicuous figures of the early
days of the Rand was its first Llanddrost, Major
von Brandis. He had a striking military appear-
ance, which was not diminished by his long grey
beard. He was immensely popular for he was

174 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

kindness itself and ever ready to do a good turn.
He had been an officer in the Austrian service.
It was he who delegated “ Bob ” Ferguson to
create a police force. Bob, the story goes, was in
the railway service at Kimberley, and was one of
the first to join the rush to the Rand. With three
or four companions he proceeded in a mule wagon,
and one night they outspanned on the borders of
the new township and slept. When Ferguson
awoke in the morning his companions had de-
parted— and so had all Bob’s savings. He pros-
pected for the Llanddrost, and found him, an easy
task for the good Llanddrost and acting Mining
Commissioner was more often in the streets than
in his office. Bob made his complaint. “ Well,”
said Von Brandis, “ I am powerless to help you,
but if you can get a few men together and hunt for
the absconders, your assistants will form the
nucleus of a police force.” That is how the
Johannesburg police force had a commencement,
and in due course Ferguson had a working corps
of which he was the head, with the title of Chief
Detective. He prospered exceedingly and soon
accumulated money and lands, owning many
farms, and speculated heavily in shares. He met
an untimely death in the late nineties by being
knocked over by a motor-car. He was succeeded
in the post of Chief Detective in 1895 by Andrew
Trimble. This latter bought his discharge from

WHEN KRUGER RULED

175

the Inniskilling Dragoons in Maritzburg, he being
a corporal in that corps, joined the Durban Bor-
ough Police and made a haul of illicit diamonds
in the old Alexandra Hotel at the Point. This
coup caused his appointment to the Diamond
Fields detective force, from whence, on Fer-
guson’s resignation, he was promoted to the
Rand. He is still happily there, in civilian life,
and “ going strong.”

I revisited the Rand for the third time in
1894, being appointed to the editorial staff of
The Johannesburg Times, and was astonished at
the marvellous change from the aspect of things
in my earlier visits. It is true there were no trees
in evidence to clothe the nakedness of the land —
but they had been planted in abundance, and
their fruition has made an equally remarkable
change in the Rand of to-day. There was a de-
cided change for the better in the appearance of
the town, for Pritchard Street had already estab-
lished its brilliant shops and claimed to be a
second Regent Street ; the Corner House was an
established fact ; the old Post Office on the
Market Square was then regarded as the last thing
in architecture, while the Market Buildings were
considered adequate for all the needs of the
population. The whole thing would look very
shoddy to the present-day Randite. It was the
golden youth of the Golden City, when its

176 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

precocious vitality was exuberant, when politics
but little interfered with the making of the pile,
and when the future wore the rosy tint so evident
to young eyes, yet so neutrally grey when viewed
through the spectacles of sceptical maturity,
Johannesburg possibly may not join in the lament
for “ the good old days.” Happy is the land
that hath no history. And the Rand has been
making history all the time.

CHAPTER XIX

Putting the Paper to Bed

I WAS sub-editor on The J ohanneshurg Times
(whose offices were afterwards occupied by The
Transvaal Leader), the paper being owned by Mr.
J. B. Robinson, though he was never in evidence.
The first discovery I made in my new sphere of
duty was that the “ Sub ” is the one man in a
newspaper office who is considered to be of no
importance whatever. The foreman-printer, and
the proof-readers rank higher in typographical
estimation ; the cashier on the “ business side ”
holds a far more venerated office, while the report-
ing staff and the “ special ” contributors regard
the “ Sub ” as a lurking foe, armed with a blunt
blue pencil, whose main occupation is the elimin-
ation of their best “ copy.” He is the journalistic
maid-of-all-work, and is really the pivot upon
which every big newspaper revolves. Such being
the facts, I accepted the first editorship that
offered later on.

My real day’s work began at nightfall, so, like
the owl, I slept in the daytime — when the other
hotel lodgers permitted me. Let me trespass on

178 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

your patience and give a sample day. I rise at
four in the afternoon, wishing it was Saturday,
the pressman’s Sunday. Hurry to the office to see
that sufficient “ copy ” has been provided for
the night shift of printers, who come on duty at
6 p.m. There I find a Scot, with a poem, awaiting
me. I consider this an incongruous combination,
and resent it. I refer the poet to the Editor-in-
Chief, knowing full well that that magnate is
never visible to anybody when his presence is
most desirable. The Scot proceeds to read his
poem to me. His accent jars my nerves, and I
ask him to call again. He departs, scowling sus-
piciously. The Chief Reporter drops in. “ I’ve
left you one reporter for night staff in case a fire
breaks out. If it’s a scare-head conflagration I
suppose you’ll give him a hand with his copy ? ”
I ignore the Chief Reporter, who gaily departs
homewards.

Having assured myself that there is enough
MSS. fodder for the printers, I am departing to
dine, when my eye is caught by a note lying under
my table. It is from the Chief asking me to look
in at the Irish banquet and take a few descriptive
notes during intervals of my work. He, appar-
ently, is oblivious to the fact that there are no
intervals in my work. This necessitates changing
into evening dress. Refreshed by dinner I return
at 7 p.m. Sheafs of cablegrams and colonial wires

PUTTING THE PAPER TO BED 179

await extension. Grimy Foreman appears, apolo-
getically wiping his hands on ink-smeared apron,
and says : “ Two more galleys to fill at once and
three more men standing idle.” I slice him a
column or two from the nearest exchanges, and
he departs — but not for long as his appetite for
“ copy ” is insatiable. I plunge into the intricacies
of an illegible treatise on irrigation. Our Lady
Journalist flounces in and almost fills my den
with her fripperies. She is pretty, clever, and a
conversationalist, but I have no time for con-
versation. She wants to know something about
her Saturday’s column, “ When Women’s World
Wags.” I refer her to the chief. She says, like
Betsy Prig, that there is no such person as she
never can find him. I placate her with concert
tickets, and she retires with scornful eyes.

The Assistant Editor leaves his den next door,
and departs with a casual reference to having
had a busy day. As his sole work is attending
to the share market and making a little pile for
himself, he should accept a busy day in a spirit of
thankfulness. Re-enter Scot with poem. I plead
pressure of work, and he departs with deeper
suspicion in his frown. Attend Irish banquet ;
speechifying not yet on, but I drink three patriotic
toasts and return. Piles of telegrams increasing ;
pile of MSS. decreasing. Foreman enters with
threatening expression. Heavens ! no leading

180 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

article ready yet ! The Chief has been at his old
game, postponed his literary task and then for-
gotten it. Foreman dismally predicts “ there’ll
be no paper in the morn.” I appease him by say-
ing that with the aid of such an intelligent man as
himself I would get the paper out somehow.
Reporter on theatre duty returns and wants to
write three-quarters of a column on the super-
lative acting of Miss Thespis. I limit him to two
“ sticks ” ; we wrangle ; I insist, and make
another life-enemy.

Pencil scratchings with feverish energy for two
hours, interlopers coming and going, and the glar-
ing oil lamps stewing my brains. I make another
sortie to the Irish banquet, make microscopic
notes, secure the final slips from the speech-taking
reporters, drink two more patriotic toasts, and
rush back to work. Met McFuddle on the way,
who begged me to give him a critical notice of
his “ Readings of Hamlet for the Poor.” I satisfy
him with one of the promises I so rarely fulfil.
Rushing up the office stairs I discover the Chief
hovering timorously in a shady corner of the
landing. He points silently and mysteriously to
my room. I enter and behold — the Scot with
poem. In order to secure his temporary disap-
pearance, I accept the poem, “ for purposes of
consideration, with no liability for loss.” The
Scot departs with suspicions nearing their climax.

PUTTING THE PAPER TO BED 181

The Chief enters when the coast is clear. With
the coolness of an habitual offender he remarks,
“ Just looked in from the Club, my boy. Re-
membered I had clean forgotten the leader. You
won’t mind dashing it off for me, will you ? Aw-
fully obliged, good night,”

Although this sort of thing has occurred before,
I fail to get used to it. So I sweat, swear and
“ dash off ” the belated leader. No difficulty in
choosing a subject — one could always revile the
Pretoria Government and utilise the Uitlander
to the extent of a thousand words or so. Leader
finished, I hurl it at the Foreman, who arrives
to make a final despairing prediction. Then more
pencil-scratching until 4 a.m, arrives, when I see
the paper “ to bed,” The Foreman locks the last
forme with a faint mitigation of gloom. With
an exultant clash and clang the rotary machine
startles the stillness of the night, and the morning
paper flies out in sheaves ready for distribution.
Then I also “ to bed,” as old Pepys says, and
sleep intermittently disturbed by the romps of the
Lyric girls in their excursions from bedroom to
bedroom, until the breakfast nudge of the waiter
awakens me to the knowledge that a similar
night’s work lies before me.

CHAPTER XX

The Jameson Raid

Despite the thickening of the political atmos-
phere the Johannesburgers continued their wor-
ship of the golden calf in merry mood. It was
remarkable that the great majority were birds of
passage, without the remotest intention of settling
down. During my three periods of residence on
the Rand I could never get rid of the longing to be
away to a quieter locality. It is fortunate for
the Rand that my longing was not shared by the
present-day “ old hands.” It is not necessary
for me to repeat in detail the series of events which
led up to the Uitlander grievances, agitation
and subsequent raid of the Transvaal by “ Dr.
Jim.” They are well known, but it may not be so
generally known that President Kruger enter-
tained an intense dislike to the Colossus of South
Africa, long before the raid. Kruger undoubtedly
cherished a hate, mingled with no small amount
of fear, for the man who stood forth so conspicu-
ously in the field of South African politics. Be-
sides this special feeling of resentment he culti-
vated his animosity for political purposes, and

182

THE JAMESON RAID

183

whenever he was driven into a tight corner or
wished to carry out some cherished design in the
face of opposition, he produced the Rhodes bogey.
With that potent weapon he frightened the
Volksraad and his burghers into obedience. It
was Rhodes who prevented Kruger from extend-
ing his dominion right up to the Zambesi, and,
worse still, it was Rhodes who was recognised as
the only leader capable of checking the spread of
Krugerism in South Africa.

Rhodes had many admirers among the Dutch,
but they were small in number, as compared to
Kruger’s following. After the raid. President
Steyn, of the Free State, visited President Kruger
at Pretoria, and in saying farewell Kruger said he
was glad to learn'that the Free State Africanders '
were loyal to the Queen, but he bade them re-
member that it was Rhodes who had dragged
their flag in the mire. Well, everybody knows
how Rhodes played into Kruger’s hands by
launching his raid, and how swiftly the old Presi-
dent chopped at the head of the tortoise when it
emerged. The raid itself was sprung on the Rand
as a surprise, despite the number of premonitory
symptoms. It was generally known that the
Reform Committee were busily engaged in secret
conclaves and everybody was on the alert for
something to happen, but nobody could say when.
The Zarps (Dutchmen policing Johannesburg)

184 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

gave the first sign. On account of the
frequent collisions between the Zarps and the
public the police were provided with revolvers.
For the same reason their revolvers were taken
from them a few days later. Then the Zarps were
armed with staves, and finally one fine morning
the Zarps disappeared altogether from the streets.

Immediately appeared Trimble’s special con-
stables, civilians distinguished by a white armlet.
Every street corner was animated by lively dis-
cussions as to whether Chief Detective Trimble,
in placing this force on the streets was acting for
the Boer Government or for the Reform Com-
mittee. All doubts were set at rest when troops
of horses began to be driven into the city from
the adjoining grazing lands. I first became aware
of the revolution by noticing that gentlemen in
Commissioner Street were carrying rifles in place
of walking sticks. I also heard these gentlemen
singing as they strode along a ditty with the
refrain, “ Johnny, Get Your Gun, Get Your
Gun ! ” Next I observed a great crowd outside
the Goldfields Hotel. There was immense hustle
here, for brand-new saddlery was being served
out for the equipment .of the riderless horses I
had seen trooping through the streets. The hotel
must have been a pretty extensive armoury, also,
for most of the new rifles I had seen were issued
from this spot.

THE JAMESON RAID

185

The work of organisation was carried out
with marvellous celerity. Camps were estab-
lished on the outskirts of the town at such places
as Hospital Hill, the Crown Deep and other mines.
It need hardly be mentioned that the mine-shafts
of some of the well-known mines had been for
some time the secret repositories for arms,
machine-guns and ammunition of all descriptions.
The way in which the irregular forces of the
Reform Committee were licked into shape was
ample testimony to the fact that the non-com-
missioned officer is the backbone of the Army.
There were quite a number of ex- Army non-coms,
and, I believe, not a few seconded from the B.S.A.
Company’s troops for this special service. And
in the ranks there were also many trained soldiers,
so that although the men wore civilian garb on
which the bandolier looked incongruous, they
presented a hardy appearance and soon mastered
the elements of drill.

Then did Johannesburg put on a new aspect.
Gone was the careless frivolity and the bored ex-
pression. Trimble’s special police effectively kept
order and supervised the bars, which could only
remain open during stated hours. From the very
first night of the transformation picquet sarmed
with rifles patrolled the streets of the suburbs,
and had orders to shoot down any European
or native detected in the act of plundering.

186 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

There were many houses uninhabited, as at
the first hint of danger hundreds of families
sought safety by flight from the Rand. The Cape
and Natal outward bound trains were packed,
and special trains had to be put on to deal with
the exodus. The Cornish miners were particu-
larly funky, and I saw a train full of these gentry
depart amid the howls of the crowd, their car-
riage being scrawled all over with the chalked
word, “ Coward.” Yet not a single instance of
looting those deserted houses came to my notice,
and when the wanderers returned they found
their lares et penates in good working order.
Johannesburg had never before been so well
policed. I can vouch for the care taken of them
for I did a few weary nights of picquet duty, four
hours street patrol and eight hours off — the
“ off ” consisting of the blessed removal of foot-
gear and a broken-sleep on the bare boards of
some lonely dwelling or verandah.

Of course I was in it. I joined the Reform
forces with a twofold idea — to have some adven-
tures and to find readable “ copy.” I did not
know till after I had joined up that the proprietor
of my newspaper had issued orders that any
member of his staff joining the “ revolution ” was
to consider himself summarily dismissed. When
I discovered this fact I was not unduly troubled
and my belief that afterwards my experiences

THE JAMESON RAID

187

could easily be translated into good red gold
was fully justified. At first I beeame a member of
the Australian Horse, but was sent away on de-
tachment to the Crown Deep Mine. My previous
army experienees exempted me from the tedium
of recruit drill, and I made myself useful in many
ways in putting the men into something like
military shape. The Crown Deep had just eom-
pleted the building of an extensive eonerete dam.
The water had not yet been turned on and this
dam was eonverted into an admirable fort, with
barbed-wire entanglements all about it to pre-
vent a surprise attaek by night. I lay out several
nights on “ outlying picquet,” a dreary job upon
whieh one eould not smoke, unless face down-
wards on the ground under cover of a great coat.
Our attention was constantly strained for the
sound of Boers ereeping up, but the Boers were
not troubling their heads about us.

Our particular force, a composite eolumn, was
under the command of Major Robertson, a hard-
bitten Scot, whose life of active serviee with the
Regular Army had left upon him the unmis-
takable stamp of the born soldier. Well, we
drilled and drilled, impatiently awaiting orders
to be up and doing ; yet day after day nothing
happened. Our meals were served in a miners’
boarding-house that is, as many of us as conld
squeeze in while the remainder made al fresco

188 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

feasts on the dusty grass. They were rough and
ready meals, and a large-size washstand ewer
was the favourite vessel for serving out the tea.
Then, one morning, there were signs of move-
ment. We were formed up in column of march,
headed by cavalry scouts, the main body being
infantry with machine-guns, and we had a full
complement of ambulances, water-carts and other
impedimenta of the march, in all, some 1,500 men.
Our doubts that this might be merely another
practice parade were quickly dispelled by the new
note in Major Robertson’s voice, as, riding up,
he gave the order to advance.

We were in high spirits as we marched through
Fordsburg on to the Krugersdorp road. We
were going to help Jameson. Thrilling reports
of ail sorts of encounters between Jameson and
the Boers circulated in the ranks, but nobody
knew anything more definite than that Jameson
had at last invaded the Transvaal from the
Bechuanaland side. But we were soon to get
definite news. After two hours’ marching we
were overtaken by a couple of heated cyclists
bearing despatches from the Reform Committee.
When Major Robertson read them we knew from
his expression that they contained bad news.
He ordered the column to the right-about in a
voice that cracked like a stock-whip. When we
eventually reached our quarters at the Crown

By courteous permission of “ South Africa."
TIIU DUSPATCH.

To face pa'je 18H.

THE JAMESON RAID

189

Deep, our commander formed us into square and
then rode into the centre. He looked as if some-
one had affronted him beyond bearing. Rising
in his stirrups he made a short speeeh, one that I
shall never forget. He said : “ Boys, Dr. Jim is
a prisoner in the hands of the damned Boers ! ”

There was a stunned silence. Then pande-
monium broke loose. Some men actually cried,
with rage, others swore like true troopers, while
not a few raised their new rifles over their heads
and smashed them on the rocks. Then the cry was
raised, “ Lynch the Reform Committee,” and a
futile rush was made for town, the Reform head-
quarters being the offices of the Consolidated
Goldfields. But the reformers were not to be
found. Then the men broke up from parties
into single units and dispersed, few ever to drift
across a fellow-adventurer again.

The following days were full of apprehension, as
nobody could tell what might happen. Gradually
the details of the Jameson invasion became
known, and they in no way assuaged the general
feeling that the whole affair had been sadly mis-
managed. Though the whole story is now a
matter of history, the details of such events have
a knaek of slipping from the reader’s memory.
To put the matter in a nutshell. Dr. Jameson, in
response to an appeal, or invitation, from the
Uitlanders, crossed the Transvaal border with an

190 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

armed force, entering from Pitsani, in Bechuana-
land, on 29th December, 1895, while Col. Raleigh
Grey the following day advanced from Mafeking.
The exact strength of Jameson’s force is not
known, but Grey had some 500 volunteers from
the British South Africa Company’s troops.
Jameson was met by the Boers at Doornkop, near
Krugersdorp on January 1, and was defeated, but
he pushed on to Vlakfontein, where, after another
fight, he surrendered to Commandant Cronje.
His losses were 21 killed and 46 wounded, while
nine officers and 550 men were marched into
Pretoria as prisoners. The old gaol there was
strongly guarded as an attempt to rescue the
prisoners was expected. But on the same Janu-
ary 2, Johannesburg surrendered unconditionally.

The rounding-up of the members of the Reform
Committee began on January 6, and as each well-
known name was recorded a thrill of fearsome
excitement passed through Johannesburg. Jame-
son and the prisoners belonging to his force were
handed over to the Governor of the Cape, Sir
Hercules Robinson, on January 7, and they sailed
from Durban on January 21, for England. Even-
tually, “ Dr. Jim ” was tried in London under
the Foreign Enlistme t Act. He was sentenced
to fifteen months’ imprisonment without hard
labour ; Sir John Willoughby to ten months ;
Major Robert White to seven months ; Colonels

THE JAMESON RAID.

The Chairman
(Mr. Jackson)

Mr. Chamberlain
8ir M. Hicks-Beach

Sir R. Webster

Mr. Bigham

Sir W. Harcourt

Sir H. Campbell-

Bannerman

Mr. T. E. Emt

Mr. Labouchera

Mr. Trevor-White. Mr. A. Cohen, Q.C. Mr. Pope, Q.C. Mr. Pember, Q.C. (Counsel^

Mr. Hawksley (Solicitor).

Mr. E. Phillips. Mr. Beit.

Mr. G. Cawston. Colonel Rhodes.

By courteous permission of “ South Africa.”
SOUTH AFRICAN PAREIAMENTARY INQUIRY.

To face page 191.

THE JAMESON RAID

191

H. White and Raleigh Grey and Major Coventry
to three months. Jameson and some others did
not serve their full terms of imprisonment, being
released on the ground of ill-health.

From the 24 to 28 April, 1896, the trial of tha
Reform leaders for high treason was held at Pre-
toria, under Mr. Justice Gregorwski, a specially
appointed judge. The death sentence was passed
on Messrs. Lionel Phillips, Hays Hammond,
George P. Farrar and Colonel Frank Rhodes, a
brother of Cecil Rhodes. Fifty-nine prominent
Rand men were sentenced to two years’ banish-
ment and heavy fines. Grey, one of the Reform
prisoners, committed suicide in Pretoria Gaol on
May 16. Nine other prisoners were released and
short sentences passed on the others, on May 20,
while 49 were released under certain conditions on
May 30. In June the death sentences on the
leaders were commuted on the payment by each of
£25,000, or fifteen years’ banishment. All paid
the fines except Col. Rhodes, who declined on
principle, and he was permanently banished.
Andrew Trimble escaped to Natal, having had a
very close shave of being captured. So ended the
Great Fiasco, which drove Rhodes from oflice as
Premier over the ruins of his “ upset apple-
cart.” Not so very long afterwards. Dr. Jame-
son, in the Cape House of Assembly, declared

192 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

that the Raid was a bad business for which
penance had been done.

There was a very exciting scene when the
Boers took formal possession of Johannesburg
after the raid. They rode in a long dusty and
dirty column, and rode through Commissioner
Street between the grimly silent crowds lining
the footpaths. When they reached “ The Chains,”
outside the Stock Exchange and Corner House,
some young idiots in the crowd started “ booing.”
The Boers turned their horses in the direction of
the sound, slipping cartridges into their rifles.
As the Boers pressed toward the crowd pressed
back until held by the chains aross the load.
The pressure was tremendous and the excitement
tense, for a single false move would have pre-
cipitated bloodshed. Fortunately some Field-
Cornets galloped up, and using their sjamboks
to throw up the muzzles of their men’s rifles,
restored order, and the commando continued its
progress.

CHAPTER XXI

The Great Explosion

The early part of 1896 was also made memorable
by another disturbing factor. On the afternoon
of February 19, I was seated writing in my room
in the hotel, situated close to the selling buildings
of the Market Square, when suddenly I was lifted
from my seat and flung into a corner of the room.
There was a deafening roar, the walls shook like
paper and the plaster flew in a shower from
walls and roof. It was a veritable Crack of
Doom. I lost no time in rushing down the stairs
into the street, where I found that I was but
following the example of the rest of the popula-
tion. The streets were filled by awe-struck
crowds who had sought the open air for safety.
There were many wild surmises. Some pinned
their faith to an earthquake ; others believed that
the adjacent gasworks had been blown up.

Presently a heavy column of smoke arose in
the direction of Fordsburg. It ascended to a great
height and then formed itself into an apparently
solid, four-sided massive column, purple, grey and
black, and remained stationary all the afternoon,

193

194 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

a pillar of wrath. With the sun illuminating
one of its sides and a deep shadow shrouding
the other, it was an impressive sight, and one
not likely to be forgotten. Then a great rush was
made in its direetion, pedestrians running, eabs
raeing, eyclists sprinting, and horsemen gallop-
ing, all tremendously eager to reach the scene of
disaster. A terrible scene it was. Three town-
ships, mostly composed of wood-and-iron houses,
had been flattened out by the force of the ex-
plosion. Vrededorp, Fordsburg and Doornfon-
tein.

In the centre of this desolation was a great,
gaping chasm, from each end of which the up-
rooted railway line pointed to the sky, bearing
mute testimony to the force exerted. It was a
hole very similar to that of the Kimberley Mine,
though of course, on a smaller scale. It soon
transpired that eleven railway trucks of dyna-
mite had exploded. One can imagine how
terrific would be the result of touching off this
enormous quantity of explosives. In the circum-
stances it was impossible to ascertain how the
disaster happened. Those close enough to see
the fatal cause would be blown to atoms. It is,
however, related that at the moment of the ex-
plosion a European and native in a Cape cart
were crossing the line, and the conveyance was
lifted bodily up and carried a considerable

THE JOJIANXESBURG EXPLOSION,

Bv courteous permission of “ South A Irka."
IMMEDIATE EEEECT AS SEEN 4 MILES AWAY.

To face p*njc r.f.l.

THE GREAT EXPLOSION

195

distance, without injury to its occupants. It was,
however, known that the eleven trucks were
allowed to stand all day in the blazing sunshine,
without any sailcloth or tarpaulin coverings.
The generally accepted theory was that the heat
melted the nitro-glycerine in the compound, that
this oozed out of the cases and that some of the
deadly liquid trickled on to a buffer. Then a
railway official, with all the carelessness character-
istic of the Netherlands railway company, pushed
an empty truck against that buffer, which acted
with the promptitude of a percussion fuze.

There were thousands homeless, and not a
single whole pane of glass left in Johannesburg
itself. On the footpaths one constantly walked
upon particles of glass. The fine plate-glass shop
fronts suffered particularly, and next day the
main shops had planks fastened across them,
reminding one of a state of siege. As I was among
the first to reach the death chasm at Vrededorp
I started to make notes for my newspaper, and
was soon joined by Bennett, our chief reporter.
We divided our forces for the purpose of des-
criptive work, and what we saw provided us with
a tremendous amount of ghastly “ copy.” When
we returned to the office that evening, we stripped
off coats and vests, and, seated amid the plaster
and debris of the office, wrote at full speed, hour
after hour, far into the early morning, the printers

196 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

gathering up the slips from the floor as they were
required. Our memories had received such ter-
rible impressions that our pencils could hardly
keep pace with our thoughts, and, revived occa-
sionally by hot coffee, we wrote like men pos-
sessed. When the paper appeared next morning
there were eighteen columns of descriptive work —
our joint effort. Details as to names of the dead
came in occasionally, but the report was, in the
main, our own work. Poor Bennett ! He was a
consumptive, and died shortly after being ap-
pointed editor of The Times of Natal.

It was gruesome to watch the excavation of
the bodies from the great pit formed by the ex-
plosion. It was generally believed that only a
portion of the corpses buried there were exhumed.
Turning from this dismal work of excavation I
walked among the ruins and saw some strange
sights. One house was blown down and only the
door-frame left standing. On top of the frame
were perched two ducks, alive and apparently
well. How they came there was a mystery — one
might have been blown there but it was very
unlikely that it was accompanied by a com-
panion. If the domestic duck was a flying bird
their situation might be explained. In a Fords-
burg stable, unroofed and shattered, six horses
were standing up, leaning against each other,
and all dead. Strange things, too, were witnessed

THE GREAT EXPLOSION

197

among the bodies of the slain laid out in parallel
rows on the floor of the Wanderers’ Skating Rink,
men, women and children, just as they arrived on
the improvised ambulances. One European had
so many grains of dirt blown into his skin by the
explosion that at first his body was taken to be a
kafir’s. There also I saw three children, with
arms intertwined and apparently sleeping happily.
They bore no marks of injury and were pre-
sumably killed by the concussion. There were
over eighty bodies laid out awaiting identification

When Johannesburg recovered from the shock
it came out in its most pleasing aspect. An im-
promptu meeting was held that late afternoon
in the Stock Exchange and a large sum was
speedily subscribed. Then a properly organised
relief fund was opened for the relatives of the
survivors, and within an amazingly short space
of time a sum of £104,000 was collected. The
Cape Government subscribed £1,000, but I do not
remember how much the other Governments
donated. Oom Paul visited the scene of the
disaster and gave £50 to the fund. That 19tli
February, 1896, was not readily forgotten on the
Rand.

Two other events stand out boldly as sources
of excitement in those old Rand days. One was
the news of the loss of the Drummond Castle.
She was a Currie liner, carrying the mails and a

198 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

passenger list almost wholly South African, the
Rand being well represented on board. She was
homeward bound, and at midnight on 16th June,
1896, she struck on the Pierres Vertes rocks,
Molene Island, off Ushant. There appeared to
have been a dance on deck, and in the general
enjoyment it was not noticed that the vessel was
being carried out of her course by a current to
her doom. Captain W. Pierce, all the officers,
147 passengers, and 103 of the crew were drowned.
The survivors reported that after the catastrophe
perfect order was maintained on board and much
heroism shown. There were only three survivors,
a Mr. Marquard, of Pretoria, and two sailors, who
clung to a hen-coop, and were saved by three
Breton fishermen. The disaster created a tremen-
dous sensation, not only in South Africa — where
every centre of population mourned its losses —
but in England. In London a sum of £25,400
was subscribed for the dependents of the victims.
General admiration was expressed for the great
humanity shown by the inhabitants of Ushant,
Molene and neighbourhood, in their attempts at
rescue, in the burial of the dead and in the assis-
tance placed at the service of the bereaved rela-
tives. Subscriptions poured in to build water-
works, a steeple, and to provide a church clock at
Ushant to commemorate French sympathy, and
also 5,000 francs towards the building of a harbour

THE GREAT EXPLOSION

199

at Port Sail, Finisterre. The verdict of the
Board of Trade inquiry was that the disaster
was due to the lack of proper precautions.

I doubt if Johannesburg was ever more ex-
cited than on the occasion of the great fight
between two well-matched pugilists, J. R. Couper
and Woolf Bendorff, which occurred in July,
1889. Everybody was interested in the combat
for weeks previously, even the women and chil-
dren, while the betting was enormous, the Jewish
community backing their co-religionist, Bendorff,
while the remainder of the population supported
Couper. The latter was very popular as a well-
known athlete, with a clean reputation. The
man from England was of heavier build than his
opponent, but not so limber. The stakes were for
£5,000 a side, the contest taking place on a hill
in what is now Turffontein, within a corrugated
iron enclosure. The admission fee was £5, but
that was not a deterrent, for during the battle
the pressure of the crowd outside broke down the
walls of the enclosure. Couper drove up in a
cab with his wife, whom he kissed and told he
was determined to win or die. The fight lasted
twenty minutes and was a particularly hard one,
Couper eventually knocking out his opponent.
There was immense jubilation in town that even-
ing. Couper afterwards opened a bar in Com-
missioner Street, wrote a racy book on life at the

200 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

Kimberley diamond-fields, and later committed
suicide. Bendorff continued in the ring in Eng-
land for some time, but finally was sentenced to a
long term of imprisonment for knifing a man at
Liverpool. The shooting of Wolfe Joel, a nephew
of Barney Barnato in his office, was another
big sensation, but it caused nothing like the
impression produced by the two events just
related.

It may not be out of place to mention here
that the Transvaal Mining Argus was the first
newspaper on the Rand. It was edited by Mr.
Chas. Deecker, to whom his wife gave valuable
assistance, and for a time I added my own brilli-
ancy to its lustre. The first five ladies in the old
mining camp were Mrs. Frank Wolhuter, who
had the first tennis court, and her “ shanty ”
near the mine bearing the same name (of which
her husband was manager) was a popular rendez-
vous of an afternoon ; Mrs. H. Wright, wife of
the manager of the City and Suburban was
second ; the third was “ Amanda,” of the Red
Light Bar where the first dances that graced
Johannesburg used to take place in a room none
too large. This lady’s real name was Mrs. Brown,
but everyone called her Amanda ; Miss Kincaid,
sister of the auctioneer, was the fourth, and Mrs.
C. Deecker the fifth.

THE GREAT EXPLOSION

201

Before leaving this portion of my narrative I
may mention that I met my Swaziland friend,
Mr. R. W. Wright at Pretoria. He was engaged
on the eonstruction of the railway from Pretoria
to Petersburg, a distanee of 178 miles, for the
Railway and Works Co., Ltd., a company in
which he was a partner. Time had not changed
his kindliness, and so I found myself among his
engineers, engaged for a time in filling in the
topographical plans of the route. I had quite
a good time with these good fellows and often
wonder where they have all dispersed to. Per-
haps the mention of their names may bring
recollection to other minds. Among the en-
gineers were T. E. Topham (still happily living in
the vicinity of Durban), Karlson, Jas. McKenzie,
R. Prettyjohn, F. J. Dawson, — Stewart, C. N.
Jenkins (killed at Colenso), — Low, — Merker,
and that genial Irishman, F. Drennan. Peace
to them all !

CHAPTER XXII

Rhodesia’s Youth

When the British South Africa Company received
its charter in 1889 steps were promptly taken to
back up its authority by armed forces. The first
instalment of these was the Pioneer Force, which
occupied Mashonaland in 1890. It was then
arranged that regular forces should be raised, and
Colonel Sir Frederick Carrington, then command-
ing the Bechuanaland Border Police at Mafeking,
was entrusted with the task of forming the corps,
and equipping them. The reader may remember
that I had made the acquaintance of Col. Car-
rington (“ Freddy,” as he was generally styled)
at Umtata, where he commanded the Cape
Mounted Riflemen. He wrote to me on the Rand
asked me to come to Mafeking, and act as his
secretary, and I was glad of the offer as it offered
a prospect of seeing the new northern land, of
which every one was then talking interestedly.
So I made my way to Mafeking via Schweizer
Reneke.

I found the Colonel up to his eyes in work,

inspecting new horses, new saddlery, new rifles

202

RHODESIA’S YOUTH

203

and new men. There were few of the latter for
most of the Rhodesian recruits had served under
Carrington before in various parts of South
Africa. I found the men outside new tents swear-
ing as they tried to subdue the unbending stiff-
ness of the new saddlery with copious applica-
tions of soft-soap. That evening the new horses
were attached to the picket-line and were capped
with new nose-bags. The effect of these strange
appliances on unbroken horses was disastrous.
The whole troop stampeded, taking the picket-
line with them, and it was many weeks before
they could be recovered from their childhood’s
homes in the Free State, to which they had bolted.
Two American cowboy rough-riders were em-
ployed to break in those horses. They used the
heavy Mexican five-girth saddles and let the
horse go where it willed, provided it was at full
gallop. When they left these cowboys’ hands,
the horses were certainly broken, but so were
their hearts, and they were ever afterwards with-
out spirit. But there was no time then for the
lunging-ring, the gentle handling and the other
arts of English horse-breaking. The horses had
to be licked into shape quickly and then hurried
northwards.

1 shared Col. Carrington’s house in Mafeking,
a rough structure, his room being at one end,
mine at the other, and the office in between. For

204 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

travelling purposes we had a luxurious wagon,
provided with a water-tank underneath, cases
of whisky for the flooring and cunning lockers for
cooking utensils, books, etc., the outside being
covered with raw hides to protect the canvas hood
from the attacks of the thorn bush. It was a
glorious life, healthy and full of fun. Our house
was envied by all our neighbours, who had to
make shift with tents. We had a Hunt Club, the
troopers being permitted to use their troop horses
for the chase if they paid a small subscription, our
quarry usually being a jackal, no bad substitute
for the genuine fox. One day a kafir brought in a
fine jackal. The Colonel confined it in a .tub,
covered with a sheet of galvanised iron, and sent
round word for the hunt to assemble at seven
o’clock next morning. There was a fine muster
and everyone anticipated a good run. Half the
dogs were from an English hunting-pack, which
had been imported for Kimberley sportsmen.
When the jackal was released it was intended to
give it a fair start, but the wretched animal had
not run 300 yards when a mongrel nipped out of
one of the troopers’ tents and fatally nabbed it.
The rage of the Colonel was terrific to behold, his
long moustache stood out like a hedgehog’s
bristles, and he gave orders for the owner of that
dog to be at once brought before him. Strange
to say, nobody owned the dog.

RHODESIA’S YOUTH

205

The members of the B.B.P. (Bechuanaland
Border Police) were a fine lot of fellows, mostly
men who had failed to pass for the Army or
Militia in the Homeland, In one tent of our
camp at Mafeking there were three troopers who
were full-fledged doctors. The corps was known
as the Top Hat Brigade, and looked very smart
even in their rough, brown corduroy uniforms
surmounted by a slouch felt hat. When the High
Commissioner, Sir Henry Loch, of whom more
anon, first beheld them he said they reminded
him of the Cavaliers of King Charles’ days. They
were proud of themselves, and with just cause,
for they were as thoroughly fitted to their work
as square pegs in square holes, B.B.P. also stood
for Blue-Blooded Police, likewise with just cause,
A large percentage of the troopers joined with
the intention of seduring commissions, but they
did not grumble when that bright bubble burst,
so infatuated were they with the charms of the
free veld-life.

Let me give an instance of their type. Trooper
Carr-Stepping had just returned to headquarters
at Mafeking after twelve months’ exile on an out-
station in the dense bush of the Protectorate.
Accordingly, being placed in possession of that
rarest of police commodities, money to burn, he
resolved to celebrate his return to civilisation in a
manner worthy of a trooper and a gentleman.

206 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

Carr-Stepping combined both those ranks so in-
artistieally that if there had been a lower rank
than trooper he would have descended to it.

Slopping through the rain and mud, he entered
“ D ” hut, a wattle-and-daub structure situated
opposite the stables. He critically surveyed his
fellow-troopers lounging upon their stretchers,
or endeavouring to play cards by the light of
candles stuck in bottles. They reeeived him
listlessly until he jingled his money between his
arched palms. Then they sat up and took
notice.

“ Gentlemen,” said Carr-Stepping, in his de-
liberate drawl, “ I observe that you are all brave
men. One or two of us have distinguished our-
selves on the tented field in other spheres of
activity ; three of you are doctors duly diplo-
maed ; one of you is not to be despised as a
pugilist ; several of you have faeed mothers-in-
law. Which of you is brave enough to faee the
darkness and rain and go down to Weil’s store
to fetch a case of whisky so that we may celebrate
one more prodigal’s return ? ”

No answer was returned to this proposition,
save the swish of the rain outside and its drip
inside from the thatched roof.

“ Bravery being damped,” eontinued the speak-
er, “ I will go myself. I will take the liberty of
borrowing Paddy, the favourite eharger of my

RHODESIA’S YOUTH

207

friend the Colonel, to bear me there and
back.”

“ You’re not game ? ” exclaimed several voices.

“ I am always game,” was his significant reply
as he vanished into the outer gloom. Soon the
chumping of the charger’s hoofs were heard
splashing down the muddy road.

“ By Jove ! Old Carr will drop into it this
time,” remarked Trooper Hartford. “ Paddy is
the Colonel’s only joy, and I wouldn’t be in Carr’s
shoes for a year’s pay.”

“ Cool cuss ! ” exclaimed another. “ When
he was very liquorish once he told me he had
been A.D.C. to Roberts in the Afghan trouble,
and that he had been Adjutant of the 92nd
Hussars.”

“ He makes an infernally untidy trooper,
anyway,” was the comment of a Corporal, who
had also “ served ” — under a martinet.

Presently the galloping of Paddy was heard on
the homeward track, and shortly after Carr-
Stepping staggered in with the case of Whisky
in his arms. “ Squared the Colonel’s groom to say
nothing about my ride,” was his laconic remark.
“ Now, prise off that lid and drive dull C^are
away ! ”

Tin pannikins were produced, extra candle-
stumps lighted, and the cards began to circulate

208 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

briskly. The replenishing of the “ beakers ” was
frequent and free. High rose the refrain of the
corps’ marching song : —

“ Drink a Cape smoke-ity ;

Get an old moke-ity ;

Saddle all broke-ity.

Fellah !

Fight with the cook-ity ;

Down in bad book-ity,

Unfortunate rook-ity

Latest joined trooper of all ! ”

Hilarity was rising to the point of oblivion to
surroundings when the Sergeant-Major pushed
open the door.

“ Carr-Stepping, the Colonel wants you im-
mediately,” he commanded.

“ Your sin has found you out, old man. Good
luck to you ! ” cried Hartford, as Carr-Stepping
left the hut, bracing himself bodily to look sober
and mentally to find an excuse for his night ride
on the sacred charger of the dreaded Chief.

“ I heartily congratulate you upon this ap-
pointment,” said the Colonel, warmly gripping
Carr-Stepping’s hand, half an hour later. “ Baker
Pasha always knew how to select good men, and
in the Egyptian Gendarmerie you will have a
splendid field for your abilities. Good-night,
Captain ; get a little sleep for you must start
early on your trip to the Old Country.”

There was never a more deboshed victim of
Bacchus than Carr-Stepping when the next

RHODESIA’S YOUTH

209

day’s dawn broke. The liquid refreshers accom-
panying the congratulations of “ the boys ” over-
came him less than the hearty sentiments of their
valedictions. The troopers securely lashed him
inside the post-cart upon a bed of mail-bags ;
went through his pockets, leaving only sufficient
cash for his journey to the coast, and wired the
balance of his money to his credit at Capetown.
On his arrival there. Captain Carr-Stepping cast
his old skin, when he argued with the purser
about the inferior cabin accommodation on the
liner, and departed on the second stage of his
journey to Egypt, clean-shaven, dapper and
alert. In Egypt his record during the lingering
campaign of the Soudan was brilliant — so bril-
liant indeed that I must confess his name was
not Carr-Stepping at all.

We had hardly fixed up the equipping of the
Rhodesian forces, when Colonel Carrington (and,
incidentally, myself) received orders to hold
himself in readiness to accompany Sir Henry Loch
to Mashonaland. It appeared that the High
Commissioner desired personally to interview
Lobengula on many matters, matters which after-
wards caused much bloodshed.

Sir Henry, a big, straight man, with a flowing
beard, arrived from Capetown at Vryburg, the
railway terminus in those days, accompanied by a
numerous staff of all descriptions, including a

210 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

telegraph operator, a crowd of cooks, secretaries,
various officers of South African reputations,
and an escort of the 11th Hussars (the “ Cherry
Pickers,” so called from their scarlet breeches).
I studied the stalwart High Commissioner with
some interest, for I had read of the tortures en-
dured by him and Sir Henry Parkes in China.
He was a stately personage, until he allowed his
hot temper to get out of control. On the occasion
of his arrival at Vryburg the Administrator of
Bechuanaland (Sir Sidney Shippard) was not
there to receive him. When Sir Sidney arrived
late and apologetic a storm of wrath burst on his
perspiring head. It was a ludicrous sight to see
the plump little Administrator standing meekly
like a school-boy before the storming Governor
of the Cape. But Sir Henry’s temper cooled down
as quickly as it rose, and all were presently in a
good humour.

CHAPTER XXIII

A Mission to Lobengula

We made an imposing cavalcade when we started,
as in addition to the Hussar escort, we were
accompanied by a strong escort of the B.B.P.
The impedimenta was considerable, and included
four American stage-coaches (called Gibson’s
coaches) laden with provisions, tinned mostly, for
the long journey. At that time Bechuanaland
had not been stripped bare of trees to feed the
ravenous maw of the Kimberley mines, and conse-
quently those coaches often came to a bushy
“ no thoroughfare,” when the unfortunate troop-
ers had to cut a road through the bush for the
procession to pass. Sir Henry was one of those
men who never go round. Among our number
were three members of the Cape Parliament,
Cecil John Rhodes, D. De Waal and J. Venter.
They had their own Cape cart, and travelled in a
somewhat reserved fashion. They preferred to
take their meals when a halt was called under the
shade of a buck-sail thrown over their cart. His
Excellency had an official dinner on the veld

every evening, laid on telescopic tables and

211

212 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

illuminated by candles in patent shade-holders.
The invited guests always included Col. Carring-
ton, other officers and the officer of the day in
charge of the escort. Rhodes but seldom dined
at this table, but doubtless was happy enough
under his buck-sail. My impression of the
Colossus was that he was very gruff and abrupt,
not to say surly. I saw him afterwards at his
model village of Kenilworth, outside Kimberley.
It was his custom to ride out there in the early
morning, and on the occasion I refer to the horse
shied, nearly pitching Rhodes over his head. For
a statesman his language was, like that of Bret
Harte’s immortal, “ painful and free.”

Sir Henry Loch had considerable discomfort
on that journey and some irritating events. One
day Col. Carrington took him, during the midday
halt, to have a shot at a crocodile on the banks
of the river of similar name. Sir Henry had
several snipings at a saurian floating down
stream (the river was in flood) and became very
angry when his quarry proved to be a partly-
submerged tree trunk. At this sport previously
Carrington had shot fourteen “ crocs ” in a little
over a week. Another day a guide took him into
the scrub in search of buck. In an open clearing
the Governor came upon a wildebeeste standing
apparently asleep. Instead of firing at once from
the saddle Sir Henry attempted to dismount,

A MISSION TO LOBENGULA 213

his action causing the beast to vanish like a flash.
All through our journey the veld, bush, plain and
valley, was simply swarming with buck, whole
herds of them being constantly visible and afford-
ing good sport for many of the travellers.

My own lot was not enviable. I had to keep
tally of the forage, mealies, etc., issued to the
large numbers of animals travelling with us. To
do this I had to ride on ahead and locate the
grain where it had been deposited in the bush
weeks previously by the contractor, “ Jimmy ”
Lawrence of Kimberley. Once located, no easy
task, I had to await the arrival of the various
non-commissioned officers responsible for the
military and police horses and the transport
animals and get receipts from each of them. By
the time this was over and I had returned to
camp I usually found that I had to go to sleep
hungry, all the provisions having been carefully
packed away in readiness for the next morning’s
trek. Now and then I found a tin of patie-de-
foie-gras, but nothing to eat or drink with it.
In addition, it rained most of the time, so that I
became accustomed to lying on the wet ground
wrapped in a wet blanket. Worse still, the same
wet blanket had to be strapped on my saddle in
the morning, with no chance of drying it. One
miserably wet day I rode along the Crocodile
River so hungry that 1 ate some of the mealies

214 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

from my horse’s nose-bag and had no tobacco !
Fortune favoured me, for I found a Boer with a
Scotch-cart who had just crossed a drift from
the Transvaal, now called Rhodes’ Drift. From
him, for one golden sovereign, I purchased a fair
supply of biltong, a still fairer supply of tobacco
and a bottle of dop. The smell of the brandy
sickened me and I threw it away, but the biltong
proved very solacing.

It would be tedious to recount the many inci-
dents of that journey. I was constantly soaked
to the skin as we travelled with the heavy rains,
and my clothing had shrunk until the garments
gripped me like a vice. I was glad to remain at
the police camp at Macloutsie — to arrange my
accounts — while the Governor and his staff pushed
on to the Shashi River, where he expected to meet
Lobengula by appointment. But Loben thought
himself as good a man any day as Her Majesty’s
representative and said if Sir Henry wanted an
“ indaba ” he would have to do the calling. Sir
Henry said he would see him hanged first, or
words to that effect, and then messengers were
kept running between the Shashi and Bulawayo
carrying the epistles of negotiation. After five
days of this futility Sir TIenry resolved to take
the backward trail to Capetown rather than abate
a jot of his dignity in favour of a native
chief. And so the weary journey was resumed

A MISSION TO LOBENGULA 215

homewards. It was uneventful except at the place
now known as Gaberones, where Major Hamilton
(afterwards Sir) Goold-Adams laid out the present
township with the aid of half-a-dozen police.
We had a rest at Khama’s chief town, Palapye,
where the Hon. Maurice Gifford put up Col.
Carrington, and we had a good opportunity of
inspecting the splendid way in which the en-
lightened native chief carried out his very ad-
vanced ideas. What I saw at Khama’s town
would fill a book, and forms another story. The
old chief presented Sir Henry with a beautiful
silver jackal kaross and the Governor returned
the compliment by giving Khama a fine horse,
one of the chargers of the escort. The Sergeant-
Major whose trooper it was, did not seem to appre-
ciate Sir Henry’s generosity. Khama afterwards
shifted his headquarters to Serowe, and the then
wild country is now traversed by the railway,
while the herds of antelope and other game have
vanished far from the white man’s ken.

When we arrived at Ramathlabama, a short
distance from Mafeking, as night was coming on
His Excellency decided to break his journey at
this spot, the only house visible being a trader’s
small store on the slope of a steep hill. Sir Henry
elected to sleep on an improvised bed upon the
small counter of the store, and orders were issued
to erect half-a-dozen tents to accommodate the

216 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

staff. Before the tents were fully erected a terrific
storm broke over us and a deluge of rain fell.
The staff crowded into the store, and all the
available personal belongings, which had been
taken off the coaches, were bundled inside the
tents. The escort of Hussars and B.B.P. had no
shelter, so wrapping themselves up in blankets
and coats they lay down on the wet ground to
court sleep. The rain never ceased its heavy
thundering all that night and when morning
broke the men of the escort were fairly buried in
mud. Early in the episode I got inside one of the
tents, clambered upon a pile of kit-bags and hung
on to the tent-pole, while the water rushed
through the tent, whose curtains had not been
unrolled, like a mill race. I had not been long
there when I was joined by D. Cadwallader, a
well-known sporting journalist, representing The
Cape Times on this trip. He also mounted on the
luggage, and there we sat the live-long night,
facing each other, listening to the roar of the rain
and expecting the tent to carry away every
moment. It was a miserable experience. When
day broke the rain ceased. It was then I re-
solved to investigate a protuberance in one of
the bags on which I was standing. My researches
led to the discovery of a bottle of whisky, owner
unknown, which was grateful and comforting,
for we were both cramped from our long perch

A MISSION TO LOBENGULA 217

on the bags. We gravely passed the bottle
to each other round the tent-pole, and saw
nothing ridiculous in the proceeding. On the
contrary.

When we arrived in Mafeking the Mayor and
citizens had prepared a banquet in honour of the
Governor and the officers accompanying him,
but His Excellency had received something urgent
by telegraph from Capetown and hurried away.
The viands and liquid refreshments were then
placed at the disposal of the drenched escort,
whose services were no longer required, and in a
short time it looked as if a swarm of locusts had
visited that dining-room.

There are so many incidents to recall of those
bygone days that their recounting would occupy
more space than I have at my disposal. Some of
them would make excellent reading, such as
Lord Randolph Churchill’s trip through Bechu-
analand and the Transvaal. He was the most
unpopular Englishman that ever visited this
country, and regarded the hospitality lavished
upon him as a matter of course. My old friend.
Major Giles, R.A., who commanded the Cape
Field Artillery, referred to earlier in these pages,
accompanied Lord Randolph as guide, philosopher
and friend, and also acted as special artist for
The Graphic depicting the phases of the tour.
I met him at Vryburg when they were passing

218 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

through, and he looked as though he had had
about enough of the adventure.

The time preceding the Anglo-Boer war was a
busy time for pressmen and I had a very trying
experience for the year immediately before its
outbreak, as F^ditor of The Graajf-Reinet Adver-
tiser, a tri-weekly paper issued in the very strong-
hold of Krugerism in the Cape Colony. But I
do not intend dealing with the events of that war,
in which I put in eighteen months in the service
of the Intelligence Department, for that pro-
tracted struggle can hardly be classed as among
the events of “ the old days,” its history being
still fresh in the minds of the majority of my
readers.

Rather will I content myself by endeavouring
to summon up the ghosts of the past, the men
who played prominent or useful minor parts on
the South African stage. For convenience sake
I will classify them, giving place of honour to my
own profession. It is a sad commentary on the
brevity of life to reflect that most of those men-
tioned have since crossed the Great Divide.

CHAPTER XXIV

Ghosts of the Past

Among the journalists I give the highest places
to F. York St. Leger, Editor of The Cape Times,
and Dr. Scoble, who held a similar position on
The Transvaal Advertiser at Pretoria. In the
early days at Capetown there were also Edmund
Powell, Editor of The Cape Argus, who was my
journalistic godfather, and F. J. Dormer, the
managing director of that journal, now a financial
magnate in London. Dormer afterwards became
managing editor of The Star, and was undoubt-
edly an able man. Some years later The Cape
Times had a very distinguished journalist, Ed-
mund Garrett, but I never had the good fortune
to meet him. Another able Editor was Blenkin,
of King Williamstown. One curious character
was Tommy Watkins, who, in order to ventilate
a grievance against The Cape Argus, smashed its
office windows with a stick ; he afterwards
edited a critical Capetown weekly entitled Ex-
calibur. Then there was Mr. A. A. Geary, who
founded the Lantern, a trenchant weekly, in 1877.
Geary had died just prior to my arrival, and was

219

220 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

succeeded by the ill-fated Thomas M. McCombie,
and erratic writer and no business man. The
success of The Lantern was largely due to the
boldly drawn cartoons of Hugh Fisher (“ Skit ”).
When Fisher wedded the actress, Ada Ward, and
departed for Australia, the cartoons were con-
tinued by the only real cartoonist South Africa
has produced, W. H. Schroeder. A well-known
Durban man who later achieved fame in London
(and died there) as a playwright, Sutton Vane
Bennett, also contributed cartoons to The Lan-
tern. When, some years later, McCombie started
Transvaal Truth on the Rand, Schroeder joined
him as cartoonist. Schroeder and I made it a
rule to walk often to Pretoria from Johannesburg
for exercise, generally one Sunday a month. We
broke our journey at the picturesque Half-Way
House, and were very tired men when we reached
the capital. McCombie made a failure of Trans-
vaal Truth, and Schroeder, in 1891, joined The
Press at Pretoria, which was under the direction
of Messrs. Leo Weinthal and William Bruce.
Here he turned out a weekly cartoon and pub-
lished an annual whieh was in great demand.
He died at Pretoria from inflammation of the
lungs in 1892, a very genuine man. The Press
issued a most valuable Memoir of the dead artist,
with specimens of his illustrations, and a highly

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

221

sympathetic biographical sketch by that veteran
journalist, Charles Cowen.

When I recall the journalists on the Rand,
from the pioneer days down to the Boer War era,
a crowd of ghosts rise before me. I will try to
distinguish some of them, though, owing to the
lapse of time, not always in chronological order.
I served on the first newspaper. The Mining
Argus, with J. W. M. Tanpermann, who aban-
doned journalism for finance, and was a resident
of the Rand for many years. C. Deecker was
editor, and his wife, Mim Deecker, played an
important part on the literary staff, while his
brother, Sam, also assisted. Later on, when the
paper changed its title to The Transvaal Argus,
A. Cahill joined its staff. He was one of nature’s
gentlemen, a loyal friend and a good worker,
especially valuable owing to his knowledge of the
Dutch language. He started life as a compositor
in Kimberley and worked up shorthand in order
to become a journalist. He died about ten years
ago. Another, of a similar disposition, was
Laurence Brown a gifted writer, who, after years
on the Rand, married a girl of Graaff Reinet and
died there shortly afterwards. Almost contem-
porary with The Mining Argus was The Transvaal
Daily News, owned and edited by Josiah Angove,
later, assisted by his brother, John. Josiah
joined the rush for the Rand from Potchcfstrooin,

222 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

and lost a lot of his printing plant through the
overturning of a wagon in the Vaal River. Next
followed The Standard and The Diggers^ News, two
journals which afterwards amalgamated. With
these papers were associated Henry Wright,
G. Brown, Walter Bruce and J. van Gelder, while
among the earlier journalists were that press
doyen, R. W. Murray (who died at Kimberley
in his 89th year) ; “ Baron ” Gluckstein, who
was on The Press (Pretoria), and ran a weekly at
Durban some years ago ; J. Sutcliffe was then a
smart young reporter on the Transvaal Advertiser
(Pretoria) and distinguished himself, when on a
visit to the Cape, by telegraphing his own obituary
notice thoughout South Africa ; A. Hays, Man-
son, D. Robb, Geo. Adamson, Stoddard, J. R.
Poulton, E. L. Williams, Clayton Bennett, F.
Cohen, A. N, Turner, Jan Cellier (Pretoria), and
W. E. Fairbridge (afterwards of Rhodesia).

I forget in what year The Transvaal Critic was
started. When I knew it Henry Hess was nominal
editor, though the assistant editor, Gustave
Halle, did the work. Henry Hess, a smart lawyer,
had his time fully occupied in defending libel
actions. His paper hit out hard and fearlessly,
and it was the most respected journal of the old
days. Heffer was another member of its staff,
since dead, whom I remember as having a violent
quarrel with Mr. Solly Joel in the Empire buffet.

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

223

Then there were the brothers, T. and G.
Sheffield, who manifested considerable foresight
and enterprise in transfering their paper. The
Star, from Grahamstown to Johannesburg, at the
psychological moment. Other Rand names jost-
ling in my recollection are Tommy Watkins,
J. T. Hollins, Clive D. Baynes, A. B. Thirst, H. S.
Lyons, W. S. Rodway, T. M. McCombie (drowned
at Salt River), Ingram, Moodie, H. Cadwallader,
Mark Gibbons, E. J. L. Platnauer (the well-known
sporting writer), Jenkins, E. Linwood, Albert
Cartwright, R. J. Pakeman, who came from
Barberton to take over the editorship of The Star,
M. B. Gardiner, J. W. Miller, B. H. Douglas,
T. J. Greenwood, P. G. Keet, W, B. Knox, F.
Hamilton, R. F. Wilson (the man who used to
accompany Rhodes on his political excursions,
because the Colossus thought nobody reported
him more accurately), F. D. McDermott (who
forsook the pen for the ploughshare), A. Mitchell,
C. E. Finlason (author of “ A Nobody in Rho-
desia ” and “ A Nobody Abroad ”), T. A. Cann,
W. Bennett, T. Bailey, Sam Edgar, John Stuart,
Leopold Grahame, Clem. D. Webb, Peter Bur-
ness, J. Sheldon and W. F. Mony penny. The
latter, as editor of The Star and correspondent
for The Times, aroused the anger of the Boer
Government, and he had to get over the border
to escape arrest on a charge of high treason. He

224 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

resumed editorial control of The Star in 1902
(after service with the Imperial Light Herald),
when that paper resumed publication after the
war.

There are no Natal journalists of the old
school — they are either dead or limbs of the law,
having availed themselves of the old system
whereby a newspaper reporter who had attended
a specified number of sittings of the higher courts
became qualified to practise as an attorney. The
late W. B. Morcom (one of the National Con-
vention delegates), Mr. Justice Carter, Mr. R. J.
Harrison (of Maritzburg), and Justice Sir John
Buchanan, of the Cape, are types of this class.
The last-named was a nephew of the founder of
The Natal Witness, and he and John Robinson
(afterwards Sir), of the Natal Mercury, were fellow
reporters of the proceedings of the Natal Legis-
lative Council. Buchanan later joined the staff
of The Cape Argus.

When I recall the greater and lesser lights of
the stage I have known, the screen of my memory
becomes crowded. During my boyhood in the
Homeland I saw many stars whose names are
unknown to the present generation. How many
South Africans can tell you off-hand who or what
was Madame Celeste ? Yet she created a furore,
despite her French accent, in Green Bushes in
London and the provinces. A Frenchman also.

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

225

Charles Fechter, was the ideal Hamlet, a part
which a German, Herr Bandmann, also essayed
in those far-off days. Then there were such fine
artistes as Madame Ristori, Signor Salvini, Mr.
and Mrs. Barney Williams, T. C. King, the trage-
dian, and his talented daughter, Bessie, favourites
in Ingomar ; Charles Matthews, Mrs. John Wood,
Buckstone, the Kendals, the Yokes Family,
Charles Warner, William Terriss, Nellie Farren,
J. D. Stoyle, Julia Matthews, E. W. Royce,
Fred Leslie, Aynsley Cook, Fred Payne, Edward
Terry, Lai Brough, James Fawn, Dion Boucicault,
Constance Loseby, Joseph Eldred (great as Quilp
and Micawber), Emily Soldene, E. Stokes, Felix
and Marshall (the two gendarmes in Genevive de
Brabant), Genevive Ward, and Ellen Terry (two
splendid survivors of a splendid past), and a host
of other popular favourites, of delightful mem-
ories.

Even in South Africa the “ old hands ” of
the stage of the early days are becoming blurred
visions. Thirty-seven years ago Capt. Disney
Roebuck managed a stock company at Capetown,
as did Capt. De Burgh and Julia Sydney at Dur-
ban. Looking backward, I give my meed of
admiration to the two finest exponents of Shakes-
peare seen in this country, William Haviland
and Henry Herbert. What a crowd of faces

appear in the mind’s background. I think it

226 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

was in 1888 that W. Thorne (now “ resting ” at
Durban) appeared on the Rand in the Elton Opera
Company, with Mrs. Eburne, Miss Levettz, Miss
Norman, Mrs. Harris, Messrs. Harford and Braze-
ly. I have already mentioned that the first
Shakespearian company was formed by Miss Ada
Beddard, and performed at the old Globe Theatre.
In Capetown, in the Roebuck days, special
mention should be made of Miss Birchenough,
Rosa Towers, Frank Towers, G. Huntley, Foster,
Morton, and Seymour Dallas, who adopted
finance as a profession shortly after the Rand was
proclaimed.

Also far back “ up stage ” were Wybert Ker-
shaw, Wilfrid Lyndon, and Charles Du Val. The
latter enlivened Pretoria in the dull siege days of
1881, and was a high-class entertainer. He
jumped overboard in the Red Sea on his home-
ward journey. Frank Fillis also turned up in the
early years of the Rand, and finally built a per-
manent circus building in Johannesburg. Carlo
Popper, afterwards a well-known Rand Boniface,
was his lion-tamer. Then there was Louie Freear
(“ Oh, Sussanah ! ”) and her brother, Willie,
who performed in a rough-and-ready music-hall
in the Market Square, as also did Frank and
Harriet Wheeler, doing “ burnt-cork ” business ;
Carrie Nelson, once the lessee of the Queen’s
Theatre, Dublin ; Ben Wheeler, the father of

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

227

Frank, later on did well with “ Fun on the
Bristol.”

Then there came Edgar Perkins with comic
opera, and such favourites as Ada Bemmister,
Minnie Raynor, Bertha Forrester ; the tenor,
Gregg, and his wife, Trixie Gilfillian ; Teddy Le
Hay, and D. and F. Coyne. Gregg and his wife
later appeared on the variety stage as Boyd and
Gilfain. Nor must I forget the great and only
impressario, Luscombe Searelle, Vernon, Reid,
or Signor Verdi (W. Breen). Next followed the
present veteran, Leonard Rayne, and a steady
stream of companies from England, prominent
among them being the Holloway and Haviland
companies respectively, with which came that
sterling actor of the old school, J. Nesbit. Dear
me ! Now the names crowd on me. Joseph
Ashman with his company ; poor Kate Vaughan,
the adored dancer of the London Gaiety, dying
miserably on the Rand. It was in Johannesburg
that I saw Aubrey Smith, who has been playing
for years in London. He captained the first
English cricket team to visit South Africa, in the
eighties, and was an excellent musician and all-
round athlete.

Looking again down Time’s vista I see Rose
Hersee, the famous prima donna, giving a few
performances on her way to Australia ; Genevive
Ward, the great tragedienne, who toured this

228 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

country ages, it seems, ago ; Sir Charles Hane,
the eminent pianist, and his wife, the gifted
violinist, Madame Neruda ; Santley, Foli, Mad-
ame Dolores, Margaret MacIntyre, Morley’s stock
company at Maritzburg, Charles Lascelles (music-
al conductor), the Sisters Vesalius, Dolly Loftus,
Rose Brandon, The Clitheroes, Charlie Austin (a
clever comedian), Madame Pearmain, Reginald
Leigh, Mrs. Vetch, and Mrs. Forte (Durban vocal-
ists), Fraser (tenor), Jeannie Ellison, Herbert
Harris, Stirling, Craven, Miss De Val lance, jovial
and popular Harry Miller, Grant Fallowes (then a
leading tenor), Emma Chambers, Albert Marsh,
Alfred Wyburd, Lilian Stanbridge, Tom Foster,
William Montague (an English tragedian of the
old school), Wilson Barrett, Miss Fortescue, Mrs.
Brown-Potter, Mrs. Langtry, Edward Terry,
C. H. Workman, Charles Arnold, and Hayden
Coffin, to say nothing of such celebrities as Marie
Lloyd, Peggy Pryde (daughter of Jenny Hill),
Little Tich, and lecturers such as Mark Twain
and Max O’Rell.

Among the prominent men in South Africa
in the eighties there were so many that stood
boldly in the public eye that it is difficult to
memorise them. Like most men in the sere and
yellow, I firmly believe that “ there were giants
in those days ” as compared to the present-day
mediocrities. As Governor of the Cape there

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

229

were Sir Bartle Frere, the beau ideal of a colonial
ruler, and Sir Hercules Robinson, who was uni-
versally popular, as was his pleasant and homely
wife. Among the legislators it is only necessary
to mention names and memory will tack on many
incidents to each, and the remark also applies
to the others mentioned. In the Cape Parliament
many striking personages played their part, in-
cluding Jan. H. Hofmeyr, Saul Solomon, D. De
Waal, R. Southey, Sir Gordon Sprigg, C. J.
Manuel, Sir Thomas Scanlen (who forsook the
Cape for Rhodesia), J. Murison, C. J. Rhodes,
Sir Thomas Upington, T, E. Fuller, J. C. Molteno,
J. W. Sauer, Capt. Brabant, John Frost, Arthur
Douglas, John Laing, J. W. Leonard, “ Dantje ”
van der Heever, J. Rose-Innes, J. Tudhope,
John X. Merriman, and Colonel Scherembrucker.
Among the occupants of the bench were the Chief
Justice, Sir Henry De Villiers, and Justices Cole,
Jacob Dirk Barry, Maasdorp, Buchanan, Dwyer,
Fitzpatrick, Smith, and Jones. The R.C. Bishop
Leonard, and the Rev. Dr. Kolbe were then well-
known Capetown personages, while, taken in-
discriminately, may be mentioned Sir David Gill
(Astronomer-Royal), Sir Langham Dale (Super-
intendent of Education), A. Wilmot (Postmaster-
General), T. J. O’Reilly (Major and Mayor), C. A.
Fairbridge, and Sir Chas. Mills (Agent-General),

230 FORTY SOUTH AFRICAN YEARS

while the outstanding names in Kimberley were
Rhodes, C. D. Rudd, and Alfred Beit.

In the Free State Presidents Brand, Reitz and
Steyn were representative men, while prominent
in the Transvaal were Presidents Pretorius and
Kruger ; Advoeates H. Cooper, Nicholas Smit,
Ewald Esselen, Jan Kock and E. J. Jorrisen,
and Justices S. Jorrison, F. Kleyn, H. Ameshoff
and G. T. Morice ; Sir Jacobus De Wet (British,
Agent), Viscount Matalha (Portuguese Consul-
General and a man of marked ability), and the
brilliant Charles Leonard, an ardent reformer
and a reservoir of good stories.

In my earlier pages I have freely mentioned
many well-known Natal men, and here need only
register the names of the Premiers, Sir John
Robinson, Harry Escombe, Sir Henry Binns, Sir
Albert Hime, Sir George Sutton, and C. J. Smythe,
J. T. Polkinghorne (Treasurer and President of
the Legislative Council), Robert Russell (Super-
intendent of Education), Bishop Colenso, R.N.
Acutt, Sir David Hunter (General Manager Natal
Government Railways), Justices Sir H. Connor,
Sir M. Gallwey, Harding and Cadiz, while Sir
Theophilus Shepstone’s name will long remain a
household word in Natal.

I have endeavoured to throw some light, how-
ever dim, on those years when South Africa was
really in the making, the most important period

GHOSTS OF THE PAST

231

of its evolution. It has entered on a new era,
though much tribulation, blood and tears. It is
certain that our children will inherit the privileges
pertaining to a great nation, albeit for years to
come still in its youth. I share the optimism of
the country’s only poet, Thomas Pringle, who
wrote —

“ South Africa thy future lies
Bright ’fore my vision as thy skies.”

INDEX

Abu Klea 54

Acutt, Robert 101

Adamson, Geo 222

Adderley Street 70

African World, The 169

Africander Bond, The 71

Alexandria 44, 48

AUenby, Edmund (Now

Lord) 94

" Amanda ” 200

Amatougaland 139

Anderson, Professor 29

Angove, josiah 159, 221

Argus, The 69, 70, 71, 75, 129
Arsenal, The 42, 43

Bailey, T 223

Baker Pasha 208

Baker, Sergt. Major 82

Balaclava 89

Bale, Sir Henry 93

Balmoral 53

Bantjes, — 154

Barberton 109, 136, 145, 154

Barker 124, 125, 127

Barnato, Barney 165, 167, 200

Barnes, J. F. E 101

Barry, Sir John Wolfe ... 99

Baynes, Clive D 223

Bay of Biscay 44

Bechuanaland 95, 150, 210, 211
217

Beit, — 167

Belliard, — 130, 131

Bendorff, Woolf 199,200

Beningfield, Reuben 101

Bennett, — 195, 196

Bennett, Sutton Vane 220

Bennett, W 223

Berg (Landlord of Hotel
Allemande) 111, 112, 126, 127

Binns, Sir Henry 93

Bird, C. J 92

Blain, Jack 149

Blakeway, Mr 88

Blenkin, — 219

Bluff 149

Bond, The 76

Boodle, Sergt. Major 84

Botha, C 75

Boyer, Jack 149

Brady, Joe 25

Brandis, Major von 173, 174

Bremer, — 149

Bremersdorp 149

Brook’s Nek 90

Brown, — 159

Brown, Laurence 221

Brown, Mrs 200

Bruce, Wm 220

Buchanan, Jack 149

Buchanan, Sir John 224

Bulwer, Sir Henry 92

Burke, T. H 24

Burnand, Sir Francis 101

Burnaby, Colonel Fred 54

Biu-nell, Colonel 57

Burness, Peter 223

Butt, Isaac 16, 17

“ By well Castle, The,” ... 43

Cadwallader, D 216

Cafe Blanc Ill

Cahill, A 221

Calais 44

Callaway, Bishop 88

Cann, T. A 223

Canterbury 83

Cape 168

Cape Argus, The 60, 63, 64, 130,
135, 219

Cape Colony ... 61, 73, 77
Cape Times, The, 60, 72, 216, 219
Capetown, 59, 60, 61, 62, 69,
76, 136, 151, 209, 214, 217

Cardiff 36, 37

Carey, James 23, 25, 26

234

INDEX

Carr, M. W 102

Carr-Stepping, Trooper, 205

206, 207, 208, 209
Carrington, Colonel, 80, 84, 95
203, 209, 212, 215

Carter, Mr 127

Carter, Mr. Justice 224

Carter, Walter ... 140, 144, 149

Cartwright, Albert 223

Cato, G 101

Cavendish, Lord Frederick 24

Celeste, Mdm 15, 224

Cellier, Jan 222

Ceres 77, 78

Chancellor’s Studio 56

Charterland 150

‘‘ Cherry Pickers ” 210

" Chief Rain Maker ” 139

Chrissie, Lake 151

Christian, Capt 149

Christiana 152

Churchill, Lord Randolph 217

Clark, R. D 100

Clayton Bennett 222

“ Cleopatra, The ” 44

Cohen, F 222

De Beers 96, 167

Deecker, Chas 200

,, Mim 221

„ Mrs. C 200

Deeker, — 159

De Kaap district 136

Delagoa, 102, 106, 107, 109,
124, 135, 145, 147

Delagoa-Komati line 112

Delane, — 68

Diamond Fields Advertiser,

The 96

Dickens, Chas 15, 52

Digger's News, T/je...l59, 222

Doornfontein 194

Doornkap 173, 190

Doran, William 87

Dormer, F. J. 63, 70, 79, 129

Dover 42, 43, 50, 54

" Dover Castle ” 44

Douglas, B. H 223

“ Dr. Jim ”... 182, 189, 190

Drake, Mrs 169

Drennan, F 201

” Drummond Castle,”

Wreck of the 197

Colenbrander, Johann, 140, 141,
143, 150

Colenbrander, Mrs. ... 149, 150
Colley, General Sir George

Pomeroy 58

CoUyer, — 28

Commissioner, Street 157, 184

Connor, Sir Henry 92

Constable, — 145, 146, 147

Cornish Miners 186

Coupler, J. R 199

Covenetry, Major 191

Cowen, Chas 221

Crewe, Sergt 84

Crimea 89

Cronje, P. A 173, 190

Crosby, W 62

Crown Deep 185

Crown Deep 187

Crutwell, Lieut 84

Dana, Richard 34

Dartnell, Major 93

Davis, Pete 95

Dawson, F. J 201

Dublin, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21,
23, 26, 28, 33, 37, 55, 56

Dublin Metropolitan Police

" C ” Division 24

Dublin University Magazine 15
Duprez 154

Durban 59, 90, 97, 98, 100,
101, 103, 112, 140, 169, 151,
190

Eastbourne 45

East Loudon 79

Edgar, Sam 223

Edwards, — 63, 64

Egypt 43

Elliot, Major H. G., 88, 89, 91
Embekelweni, 134, 135, 149, 151
Escombe, Harry 91, 99, 100, 102

Essex Marshes 49

Eugenie, Empress 101, 148

Evening News, The 159

Ewing, Capt 149

Excalibur 192

Express, De 71

INDEX

235

Fairbridge, W. E 222

Fanu, J. Sheridan Ee, 15

Farrar, George P 191

Farren, Nelly 29

Featherstone, — 124, 125, 126

Fechter, Charles 15

Felix, — (Comedian) 50

F'erguson, “ Boh”... 174, 175

Finlason, C. E 223

Fisher, Hugh 61, 220

" Fitzmaurice, The,” 44

Forbes, James 149

Forbes Reef 136, 147

Forbes, Sergt. Major Aleck 90
Fordsburg... 188, 193, 194

Fordyce, Mr Ill, 112

France 45

Frece, Lady de 55

Freeman’s Journal, The 29
French, Lord 23

Gaberones 215

Gaika-Galeka 81

Gallewski, — 163

Gallion’s Reach 43

Gallwey, Michael 92

Gardiner, M. B 223

Garrett, Edmund 219

Gazaland 139

Geary, A. A 61, 219

Gelder, J. van 222

Geddes, Sir Auckland 68

Gibbons, Mark 223

Gifford, Hon. Maurice 89, 215
Giles, Major... 79, 82, 217

Gladstone 59

Gluckstein, " Baron ” ... 222

Golden City 156, 175

Golding, — 90, 91

Gordon, General 54

Goschen 94

Gough, Colonel 95

Graaf-Reinet Advertiser, The

218

Grahame, Leopold 223

Grand National Hotel 158

Grant, Major 88

Graphic, The... 52, 53, 217

Greenacre, Benjamin 101

Greene, Conyngham 172

Greenpoint 70

Greenwood, T. J 223

Gregorwski, Mr. Justice . 191

Grey, Colonel Raleigh, 94, 190,
191

Griqualand, East 85

Gimn, Brothers 28

Gunn, Michael 28

Haden, Seymour 92

Haig, Douglas 94

Halle, Gustave 222

Hamilton, F 223

Hamilton, Major 215

Hammond, Hays 191

Hampson 87, 88

Hardy, Lord Gathorne ... 46

Harrison, R. J 224

Hartford, Trooper... 207, 208

Hartley, Dr 84

Hartley, Sir Charles 99

Hays, A 222

Headley F 149

Heffer, — 222

Heights, Caravansary 158

Height's Hotel 153

Hess, Henry 222

Heyman, Lieut 82

Heys, Gevey & Co 152

Hime, Colonel, A. H 92

Hinsch, Baron 163

Hollins, J. T 223

Holman, — 159

Hospital Hill 185

Hotel Allemande 126

Howitt, N. M 155

Hunter, David 101

Hutchinson, George 149

Illustrated London News, The 53

Imperial Light Herald, The 224

Independent, The 96

" Inflexible,” H.M.S 48

Ingram, — 223

“ Irish Brigade,” 110, 113, 119

Irish Times, The 29

Isaacs, Barnett 166

Jameson, Dr. 173, 188, 190, 191

236

INDEX

Jamieson, Robert 102

Jenkins, — 223

Jenkins, C. N 201

Jessel, Sir George 166

“ Joanna,” 105, 106

Joel, Solly 168

Joel, Wolff 69, 200

Johannesburg, 42, 153, 156,
163, 174, 185, 186, 192, 195,

Lemon, Mark 16

Leveque, — 145, 146

Lever, Chas 15

Leybourne, George 51

Leyds, Dr 171, 172, 173

Linwood, — 223

Lobengula 208, 214

Loch, Sir Henry. ..205, 209, 212,
214, 215

197, 199, 200

Lodge, Lieut

Johannesburg T imes,

The 175,

London— 27, 29, 35, 38, 39, 43,

177

44, 50, 60. 68

J olivet. Bishop

101

London Steamboat Coy....

Joubert, P. J

173

Loiuenco Marques — 102,

103,

108, 114, 116,

120

Lover, Samuel

Low, —

201

K— , Mr

Lukin, Lieut. Tim

201

Lydd

Keet, p! G

223

Lyons, H. S

223

Kei Reiver

101

Kenilworth

212

Kennedy, Sergt. Matt

.... 85

Kenyon, Sergeant Instructor 82

McCombie, Thomas 61, 220, 223

215

223

Khartoum

McHale, Archbishop

Khiva

McIntosh, Findlay & Co.

103

Kimberley, 61, 89, 96,

151, 152,

MacKay, Mr

169

153, 154, 166, 167,

174, 200,

McKenzie, Jas

201

211, 212, 221

McKeown, —

162

Kincaid, Miss

200

McLachlan, Tom

149

" King ”

Maclean (Three brothers) .

King Williamstown 70, 79, 80,

Macloutsie

214

81, 89,

91, 219

McMurdo, Colonel

107

Kingstown

McNab, Bot 145, 146,

147

Kokstad 90, 91, 92

Madeira

168

Komati Poort

107

Mafeking 94, 190, 202, 205, 215

Kotze, Sir John...

172, 173

217

Knee, Philip

104, 105

" Magog, The ”

Knox, W. B

223

Majuba

Kruger Government .

158

Malone, Barney

165

Kruger, President 155,

170, 172,

Manson

222

173,

182, 183

Mapleson, Col,

Krugersdorp 161,

162, 190

Maritzburg 61, 89, 92, 93,

98,

175

Marquard, Mr

198

Marshall, — (Comedian) .

Langslaagte

154, 156

Martin, John

149

Lantern, The 61, :

219, 220

Mashonaland 202, 209

Laure, Mons

111, 112

Matabele

139

Lawrence, " Jimmy ”

.... 213

Mathers, E. P

Lawson, Mr. Justice ..

.... 16

Matthews, JuUa

Lebomba

.... 131

Mbabane

149

Leger, F. York St....

61, 219

Meikle, Andrew

149

INDEX

237

“Melrose Castle,” The ... 26

Merkin, — 201

Methuen, C. U 99

Methuen, Lord 95

Middlebiu"g 71, 78

Miller. J. W 223

Mining Argus, The 159, 161,
163, 221

Mitchell, A 223

Modderfontein 156

Molene Island 198

“ Monks of the Screen ” . 13

Montsioa, Chief 94

Monypenny, W. F 223

Moodie, — 223

Moodie Block 136

Moonlight, Capt 116

Morcom. W. B 224

Moimt Frere 91

Moveni Bridge 112

Muldoon, 111, 112, 115, 118,
120

Mullins, Mary 149

Murray, R. W 222

Nasur-ul-Deen 53

Natal,... 61, 91. 145, 191

Natal Advertiser, The 99

Natal Mercury, The 99, 100,
224

Natal Police, The 83

Natal Witness, The ... 95, 224

Nelson, Carry 29

Neuman, Arthur 149

Newcastle 151

New Romney 50

New Scotland 138, 148

North Hall 34, 35

O’Donnell (an Invincible) 26

O’Reilly, T. J 62

Oblate Fathers 30

Odessa 89

Oom Paul... 169, 171, 197

Orange River Colony 61

Orton, Arthur 50

Owen, Colonel J. F 62

Paardeburg 173

Pakeman, R. J 223

Palapye 215

Palliser Shell 48

Paris 19

Parkes, Sir Henry... 210, 211

Parnell, Charles Stuart 17

“ Patrick ” 148

Patriot, De 71

Phillips, Lionel 191

Phoenix Park 19, 24

Piccione, Mr 93

Pinetown 59, 93

Pierce, Capt. W 198

Pietersburg 201

Pigg, Wm 149

Pitsani 190

Peake, Capt 125

Peakman, Sergt 84

Perie Bush 81

“ Peruvians ” 163

Platnauer, E. J. L 223

Plymouth 42

Police, Natal 93

Pondoland 90

Port Elizabeth 26

Port Natal 99

Porter, Jane 34

Portsmouth 42, 54

Potchefstroom 59, 159

Poulton, J. R 222

Powell, Edmund 60, 63, 70, 72,

219

Power, Nellie 54

Press, The 169, 220

Pretoria 108, 153, 156, 163,

165, 169, 170, 183, 191, 201

Prettyjohn, R 201

Prince and Princess of Wales 23

Prince Imperial 148

Prince of Wales (King

Edward VII.) 19

“ Princess Alice, The,” 42, 43

Pringle, Thomas 231

Punch 53

Qumbu 91

Ramathlabama 215

Rand, 'I'he 29, 69, 87, 154, 155,
156, 158, 159, 173, 174, 175,
182, 183, 185, 197, 202

238

INDEX

Rathbone, — 149

Republic, Transvaal 95

Rhodes (Cecil) 76, 155, 166,
167, 183, 211, 212

Rhodes, Frank 191

Rhodes and Rudd, Messrs 154

Rhodes’ Drift 214

Rhodesia 150

Rhys, Percy 160

Richmond 92

Rigby, — 88

Roberts (Lord) 207

Robertson, Major... 187, 188

Robinson, J. B. 153, 154, 148
177

Robinson, Sir Hercules 95, 190

Robinson, Sir John 100

Robinson, Sir Joseph 155

Rodway, W. S 223

Roebuck, Captain Disney 60

Roos, J. De Villiers 72

Rose, Capt 26

Ross, Tom 126, 127

Rossa, O. Donovan 19

Royal Arsenal, The 41

Royal Regiment of Artillery 40
Royce, E. W 29, 53

St. Vincent 58

So bon. Father 101

Sandford, A. H 88

Sauer, Dr. Hans 153,154

Saundevs’ News Letter ... 29

Schermbrucker, Colonel . 69

Schroeder, W. H 61, 220

Schweizer Reneke 202

Scoble, Dr 169, 219

Scots Greys 21

Scott “ Wingy ” 84

" Scotty Smith ” 148

Sevastopol 89

Shackleton, Sergt. Major 93
Shah Ahmed Mirza, The . 53

Shaw, W 17

Sheehan and Frisby (stage-
coach owners) 152

Sheerness 43

Sheffield, G 223

Sheffield, T 223

Sheldon, J 223

Shepstone, Arthur Jesse . 92

Shepstone, Henrique 92

Shepstone, John 92

Shepstone, " Offy ” 134

Sheridan, Richard Brimsby 15

Shervington, Capt 85

“ Shoebury ” 50

Shoeburyness . . . 42, 46, 47

Shippard, Sir Sydney — 210

Simmer & Jack (Store) ... 151

“ Skit ” 61

Solden, Emily 29, 50

Solomon, Saul 70

Soudan, The 209

South Africa 25, 99

Southampton 168

Spencer, Earl 23

Standard, The 159, 222

Star, The 219, 223

Statham, F. R 95, 96

Stein, Capt 93

Stellaland 94

Stephen’s Green 28

Stephens, James 18, 19

Stewart, — 201

Steyn, President 183

Steynsdorp 135, 151

Stoddard, — 222

Stuart, John 223

Sullivan, Barry 28

Summershield, Dr 147

Sutcliffe, J 222

Swaziland 129, 130, 136, 147,
151, 154

Swazis 139

Tancred, Thomas 102, 108, 112

113, 127, 129

Tangermann, J. W. M. ... 72

Tangye, Mr 46

Tanpermann, J. W. M. ... 221

Teheran 53

Tembuland 81

Territorial News, The — 87

Thomas Embankment 44

Thiest, A. B 223

Thorburn, Mr 134, 140

Thorburn, Mrs 140

Tichborne, Sir Alfred 50

TiUey, Vesta 54

Times, The 68

Times of Natal, The... 94, 196

Titiens, Mdm 27, 28

Toole, J. L 14

INDEX

239

“ Top Hat Brigade ” 205

Topham, T. E 201

Tossel, Sergeant 162

Transkeian Territories 88

Transvaal 61, 145, 168, 182,
188, 217

Transvaal Advertiser, The

169, 219

Transvaal Argus, The 221

Transvaal Critic, The 222

Transvaal Daily News, The 221

Transvaal Hotel 165

Transvaal Leader, The 177

Transvaal Mining Argus,

The 200

Transvaal Trust 220

Tremaine, Miss Ada 159

Trimble, Andrew 174, 184,

185, 191

Turffontein 199

Turner, A. N 222

Turpin, — 162

Umbandine, King 130, 134, 137,
138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144,
145

Umtata 81, 82, 83, 85, 88,
90, 91, 202

Umtata Herald, The... 87, 88

Umtata Hospital 89

Umtata River 88

Underhill, — 149

Union-Castle Line 99

Uppington, Sir Thomas 77, 78

Ushant 198

Usuto River 130, 131

Vause, Richard 100

Venter, J 211

Verulam 149

Victoria, Queen 53

Vilhers, De 154

Vlakf ontein 190

Vorster, Barend J 173

Vrededorp 194, 195

Vryburg 94, 209, 210, 217

Waal, D. De 211

Wallenstein, — 140

Walton, Hon. Sir E. H.,

K.C.M.G 11

Ward, Ada 61

Warren, Sir Charles 95

Warrington 36

Watkins, Tommy... 219, 223

Watson, WiUiam 94

Webb, Clem. D 223

Webster, Sergt. -Major — 91

Weinthal, Eeo 169, 200

Wellington 61

Wheeler, Harold 149

White, Col. H 191

‘‘ White Horse Syndicate ” 69

White, Major Robert 190

Whittaker, Lieut 82

Wilde, Oscar 33

Wilde, Sir William 33

William II., Kaiser 53

Williams, E. L 222

Willoughby, Digby 85

Willoughby, Sir John .... 190

Wilson, Allan 84

Wilson, R. F 223

Wilson, Texas 149

Witwatersrand 153

" Wizard of the North ” . 29

Wolhuter, Mrs. Frank 200

Woodhead, R. Cawthra . 99

Woolwich 55

Woolwich 49

Woolwich 45

Woolwich 40, 42

Wood, Mrs. John 28

Wright, Mrs. H 200

Wright, R. W., 134, 135, 147,
159, 201

Young Folks’ Budget, The 38, 39

Zambesi 183

Zarps, The 183, 184

Zeederberg, — 152

Zoutpansbcrg 173

Zozimus 92

Bournemouth ;

W. Mate & Sons (1919) Btd.

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